3  LING 


THE  ROEBLING  MONUMENT. 

The  monument  has  a  total  height  of  15  feet,  7 
inches.  This  is  exclusive  of  the  concrete  base, 
which  is  built  4  feet,  6  inches,  underground.  The 
stonework  supporting  the  statue  is  9  feet  high  and 
the  statue  measures  6  feet,  7  inches.  The  figure 
is  modeled  in  a  sitting  position.  Had  it  been  cast 
in  a  standing  posture,  it  would  have  reached  a 
height  of  exactly  8  feet.  The  statue  is  made  of 
bronze  and  was  cast  in  the  plant  of  the  Gorham 
Manufacturing  Company  in  Providence,  R.  I. 
The  cast  was  made  from  a  clay  model  designed 
by  William  Couper,  the  sculptor,  in  his  studio, 
207  East  Seventeenth  street,  New  York  city.  The 
pedestal  is  built  of  red  Swedish  granite. 

On  the  right  side  of  this  granite  pedestal  is  a 
bronze  panel  containing  a  reproduction  in  relief  of 
the  first  railroad  suspension  bridge  built  over  the 
Niagara.  On  the  left  side  is  another  panel  con- 
taining a  replica,  also  in  relief,  of  the  Brooklyn 
Bridge,  designed  by  Mr.  Roebling. 


JOHN  A.  ROEBLING 


AN   ACCOUNT  OF  THE  CEREMONIES 

AT    THE     UNVEILING     OF    A 

MONUMENT    TO     HIS 

MEMORY. 


TRoebling  press 
1908 


INTRODUCTION. 


While  many  monuments  have  been  erected  in  honor  of 
those  who  have  achieved  distinction  in  statecraft,  who  have 
led  victorious  armies  upon  hard  fought  battlefields,  or  who 
by  the  exercise  of  exceptional  literary  gifts  have  appealed 
to  world  wide  sympathies  and  affections,  the  sculptor's  art 
has  been  seldom  employed  to  commemorate  the  virtues  of 
men  whose  lives  were  spent  in  scientific  and  industrial 
pursuits. 

It  has  been  said  that  a  great  engineer  dealing  with  mate- 
rial things,  and  bending  them  to  his  will,  leaves  behind  him 
monuments  in  the  works  built  upon  his  designs.  This  is 
true,  but  while  an  imposing  structure  may  give  evidence  of 
the  genius  of  the  builder,  it  suggests  but  little  of  the  man 
himself,  and  it  is  therefore  proper  that  those  who  deem 
him  worthy,  should  give  expression  in  material  form  to  the 
esteem  in  which  they  hold  his  memory. 

To  the  small  number  of  monuments  erected  in  honor  of 
eminent  engineers,  there  has  recently  been  added,  at  Tren- 
ton, N.  J.,  a  statue  of  John  A.  Roebling.  Mr.  Roebling 
was  not  a  native  of  Trenton,  nor  of  the  country  in  which 
the  greater  part  of  his  life  was  spent.  Yet  so  important 
was  his  work  and  so  strong  the  impression  left  by  his  per- 
sonality, it  is  not  strange  that  the  people  of  his  adopted  city 
desired  to  place  in  their  principal  park,  a  statue  portraying 
the  man  as  he  looked  in  the  prime  of  his  active  life. 

A  committee  of  citizens  took  the  matter  in  hand  and 
solicited  popular  subscriptions  which  resulted  in  contribu- 
tions from  a  large  number  of  the  people  of  Trenton,  who 
had  either  known  Mr.  Roebling  or  appreciated  the  bene- 
fit of  his  services  to  their  community. 


The  monument  was  designed  by  Mr.  William  Couper, 
of  New  York,  under  whose  direction  there  was  produced  a 
striking  likeness  of  the  great  engineer.  It  was  unveiled  on 
June  30th,  1908,  in  the  presence  of  over  15,000  people, 
among  whom  were  the  Governor  of  New  Jersey,  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  State  in  the  United  States  Senate  and  a 
number  of  other  distinguished  guests. 

Throughout  the  city  of  Trenton  there  was  a  general  dis- 
play of  flags,  the  occasion  being  officially  recognized,  locally, 
by  the  closing  of  the  City  Hall  and  Court  House  at  noon  and 
the  attendance  of  the  City  and  County  officials  in  a  body. 

The  City  of  Miilhausen,  Germany,  the  birthplace  of 
Mr.  Roebling,  sent  an  artistic  copper  wreath  as  its  tribute 
to  his  memory. 

Notable  features  of  the  dedication  ceremonies  were  a 
concert  by  Winkler's  Second  Regiment  Band,  singing  by 
the  United  German  Singing  Societies  of  Trenton  under 
the  direction  of  Dr.  Carl  Hoffman,  and  addresses  by  Hon. 
Edward  C.  Stokes,  former  Governor  of  New  Jersey,  and 
Mr.  Henry  D.  Estabrook,  of  New  York,  General  Counsel 
for  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company. 

Prior  to  the  unveiling  of  the  monument,  6500  men, 
employees  of  the  industry  founded  by  John  A.  Roebling, 
and  since  his  death  conducted  by  his  sons,  marched  from 
the  works,  through  the  streets  of  Trenton  to  Cadwalader 
Park.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection  that  in 
the  year  1908  occurs  the  sixtieth  anniversary  of  the  removal 
by  Mr.  Roebling  of  his  plant  to  Trenton  from  Saxonburg, 
Pa.,  where  eight  years  before  he  had  begun  the  manufac- 
ture of  wire  rope. 

Mr.  Roebling  was  the  first  to  make  wire  rope  in  this 
country,  and,  as  the  market  developed,  he  found  that  it 
could  not  be  conveniently  supplied  from  the  location  of  the 


original  factory.  It  was,  therefore,  decided  to  move  to 
Trenton,  where  preparations  were  made  to  manufacture 
wire  rope  in  larger  quantities  than  could  be  produced  with 
the  limited  facilities  employed  at  Saxonburg.  As  an  aid  to 
this,  there  was  soon  added  to  the  rope  shop  a  mill  for  draw- 
ing wire,  from  which  wire  was  supplied  to  the  trade  as  well 
as  for  stranding  into  rope. 

Wire  has  been  made  from  bars  of  metal  for  many  cen- 
turies, but  sixty  years  ago  it  was  far  from  being  the 
important  product  it  has  since  become,  and  there  was  then 
little  to  indicate  the  many  uses  to  which  in  a  few  years  it 
would  be  applied.  Mr.  Roebling,  by  his  work  at  Saxon- 
burg  had  shown  the  merit  of  wire  cables,  but  their  use  was 
still  confined  within  comparatively  narrow  limits,  and  there 
was  nothing  to  correspond  with  the  present  demand  for 
wire  for  mechanical  purposes. 

When  the  factory  was  built  at  Trenton,  there  were  no 
elevators  raised  and  lowered  by  wire  ropes  in  lofty  buildings, 
and  modern  methods  of  mining,  quarrying  and  lumbering, 
depending  upon  the  operation  of  wire  cables  were  unknown. 
The  telegraph  was  in  use,  but  a  few  miles  of  wire  were 
sufficient  to  carry  the  occasional  messages  for  which  the 
mails  were  thought  too  slow,  and  years  were  yet  to  pass 
before  wire  cables  should  lie  upon  the  ocean's  bed,  flashing 
the  news  of  widely  separated  continents.  No  human  voice 
had  ever  sent  its  vibrations  across  miles  of  space,  and  the 
millions  of  pounds  of  metal  now  annually  transformed  into 
threads  of  wire  to  transmit  electrical  energy  then  lay  buried 
in  unsought,  undiscovered  mines. 

The  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  destined 
to  be  marked  by  a  rapid  development  of  the  resources  of 
the  country,  and  by  a  progress  in  mechanical  arts  greater 
than  the  world  had  ever  known  before. 


This  development  and  progress  called  for  the  exercise 
with  ever  broadening  scope  of  the  talents  of  the  inventor 
and  engineer,  and  such  talents,  combined  with  the  judge- 
ment of  a  practical  business  man,  were  possessed  in  a  high 
degree  by  the  wire  rope  maker  of  Trenton. 

He  was  not  the  only  manufacturer  of  his  time  who  had 
added  to  the  capacity  of  his  factory.  Old  manufacturing 
establishments  were  being  enlarged  ;  new  ones  were  spring- 
ing into  existence,  and  with  the  growth  of  the  manufac- 
turing industry  there  came  a  demand  for  an  increased 
supply  of  fuel,  and  the  need  of  improved  methods 
of  mining  and  transportation. 

Rich  veins  of  coal  were  located  in  the  mountains,  the 
strata  running  far  above  the  valley  roads.  The  demand  for 
additional  fuel  could  be  supplied  by  the  development  of 
these  mines,  but  the  transportation  of  coal  to  convenient 
shipping  points  presented  a  difficult  problem  for  solution. 
This  Mr.  Roebling  helped  to  solve,  by  equipping  with  wire 
rope  inclined  planes,  extending  along  the  mountain  side  from 
the  opening  of  the  mine  to  the  valley  below. 

As  an  aid  in  building  suspension  bridges,  he  designed 
endless  wire  rope  cableways,  which,  continuously  moving 
upon  wheels  located  at  each  end  of  a  bridge  span,  carried 
across  wires  to  form  the  supporting  cables.  It  was  a  short 
step  from  these  to  cableways,  spanning  ravines  and  moun- 
tain gorges,  carrying  coal  and  other  minerals  where  old 
methods  of  transportation  would  have  been  impracticable. 

Each  successful  application  of  his  product  enhanced  the 
reputation  of  the  wire  rope  manufacturer  and  increased  the 
demand  for  his  services. 

The  year  following  his  settlement  at  Trenton,  gold  was 
discovered  in  California,  awakening  the  country  to  an 
appreciation  of  the  possibilities  of  the  West,  and  providing 


an  incentive  for  the  investment  of  capital  in  the  extension 
of  Eastern  railways.  But  rivers  must  be  spanned  to  carry 
their  rails,  and  transportation  companies,  operating  lines  of 
steamboats  upon  important  waterways,  bitterly  opposed 
plans  to  build  railroad  bridges  with  piers  threatening  to  ob- 
struct navigation. 

If  the  Niagara  river  could  be  bridged  there  would  be  no 
conflict  with  steamship  lines,  but  the  natural  conditions 
which  prevented  navigation  made  impracticable  the  con- 
struction of  piers  in  the  stream.  Prominent  engineers  who 
inspected  the  site  expressed  the  opinion  that  a  bridge  could 
not  be  built,  and  it  seemed  as  though  the  railway  must  halt 
in  its  course  toward  the  West. 

The  one  man  of  the  time  to  present  a  solution  of  the 
problem  was  the  pioneer  wire  rope  manufacturer,  whose 
designs  of  suspension  bridges  had  been  met  with  ridicule 
and  opposition. 

By  force  of  argument  and  logic  of  mathematical  demon- 
stration, he  gained  converts  to  his  belief  that  he  could  safe- 
ly extend  the  railway  across  Niagara.  His  design  was  finally 
adopted,  and  on  March  16,  1855,  a  span,  800  feet  in  length, 
carried  by  wire  cables  245  feet  above  the  whirlpool  rapids, 
supported  the  first  railroad  train  to  cross  a  suspension  bridge. 

The  following  year  witnessed  the  beginning  of  a  span 
200  feet  longer  than  that  at  Niagara,  to  cross  the  Ohio 
river  at  Cincinnati,  and  then  Mr.  Roebling  proposed  what 
was  to  be  the  crowning  achievement  of  his  career,  a  plan 
to  connect  the  cities  of  New  York  and  Brooklyn  by  a  bridge 
with  a  river  span  of  1600  feet,  supported  by  cables,  placed 
high  enough  above  the  water  to  enable  ships  with  their 
towering  masts  to  sail  beneath.  This  project  was  advanced 
in  the  fifties,  but  it  was  not  until  ten  years  later  that  the 
plan  was  adopted. 


8 

The  designer  of  the  Brooklyn  bridge  did  not  live  to  see 
its  completion,  losing  his  life  July  22nd,  1869,  as  the  result 
of  an  accident  at  the  very  inception  of  the  work.  The  bridge, 
completed  under  the  direction  of  his  son,  Washington,  was 
opened  for  traffic  in  1883  and  has  been  continuously  in  use 
ever  since. 

John  A.  Roebling  came  to  America  a  stranger  to  its  life 
and  customs,  without  influential  friends  and  with  little 
capital  other  than  character,  energy,  and  courage.  He  be- 
gan the  manufacture  of  an  unknown  article,  for  which  he 
created  a  market,  aiding  in  so  doing  the  development 
of  the  nation's  resources  and  laying  the  foundation  of  one  of 
the  world's  great  industries.  He  met  a  condition  arising 
from  the  growth  of  his  adopted  country,  by  proposing  to 
carry  new  highways  across  rivers  upon  bridges,  the  like  of 
which  had  not  been  known  before. 

There  arose  about  him  a  chorus  of  protest,  voiced  by 
engineers  more  eminent  than  he,  who  denounced  his  plan  as 
visionary  and  impracticable.  With  courage  undaunted,  a 
persistence  not  to  be  repelled,  he  insisted  that  he  had  dis- 
covered a  principle  of  mechanics  worthy  of  acceptance  and 
silenced  his  critics  by  building  those  great  bridges  which 
stand  as  beautiful  and  imposing  monuments  to  his  memory. 

To  these  monuments  there  has  been  added  the  statue 
erected  at  Trenton,  the  tribute  of  the  people  of  the  city 
where  he  lived  and  wrought  so  well. 

The  following  pages  contain  the  programme  of  the  cere- 
monies at  the  dedication  of  the  monument,  the  speakers' 
addresses,  biographical  sketches  of  the  memorial  committee 
and  comments  of  the  press  upon  the  occasion. 

ALFRED  N.  BARBER. 


Programme 


Programme  of  Exercises. 


MUSIC  —  ''American  Overture,"         .         Winkler's  Band 
INVOCATION,  .         .  Rev.  W.  Strother  Jones 


"Der  Tag  des  Harm,"        .        { 

Under  Direction  of  DR.  CARL  HOFFMANN 

UNVEILING  OF  STATUE,  by  Miss  Emily  M.  Roebling 


INTRODUCTION  OF  ORATOR,       Hon.  E.  C.  Stokes 

ADDRESS,          ...          Mr.  Henry  D.  Estabrook 

"Star  Spangled  Banner,"       .       {  ""^fS^0™'" 
Under  Direction  of  DR.  CARL  HOFFMANN 

INTRODUCTION  OF  SCULPTOR,  >  H      T  H  RI 
MR.  WILLIAM  COUPER,      \  Hon>  J"  H-  Blackwe11 

Music-Coronation  March,  }  Winkler's  Band 

from     The  Prophet,          ) 


Addresses 


Address  of  Hon.  E.  C.  Stokes. 


IS  scene  reminds  us  that  posterity  is  not  forgetful; 
it  ever  recalls  the  greatness  of  its  ancestors.  We 
have  our  Fourth  of  July,  our  Memorial  Day,  our 
commemorations  of  Washington,  Lincoln  and  Grant.  Sel- 
dom does  posterity  neglect  the  hero  or  pioneer,  the  dis- 
coverer or  benefactor.  In  poetry  or  song,  in  marble  or 
bronze,  it  hands  down  to  coming  generations  the  memory 
of  great  achievements  and  beneficient  services. 

Almost  every  city  of  importance  has  its  monument  com- 
memorative of  some  genius  whose  enduring  works  awake 
the  grateful  acknowledgement  of  his  fellows.  Genoa  has 
its  statue  of  Columbus — a  son  whose  discoveries  brought 
fame  to  his  birth  place ;  Stratford  has  its  statue  of  Shakes- 
peare, that  makes  it  a  Mecca  for  the  literary  pilgrim ;  Phila- 
delphia has  its  statue  of  Franklin,  its  great  inventor  and 
scientist ;  Essen  has  its  statue  of  Krupp,  whose  industrial 
genius  has  encircled  the  world. 

We  are  no  exception  to  this  happy  custom.  After 
thirty-nine  years,  we  gather  to  unveil  a  statue  to  John  A. 
Roebling,  one  of  Trenton's  sons  whose  creative  genius  still 
speaks  in  the  industrial  world  and  through  the  great  enter- 
prise he  founded — developed  and  enlarged  under  the 
management  of  his  sons — still  continues  to  add  to  the 
growth  and  prosperity  of  our  city. 


16 

It  has  been  well  said  that  the  world  and  its  affairs  are 
administered  by  men  of  action  rather  than  by  philosophers 
and  dreamers.  The  marvelous  achievements  of  this  day 
and  generation  are  the  result  of  efforts  of  the  great  captains 
of  industry — of  men  whose  practical  minds  can  see  a  com- 
pleted work  even  before  it  is  started  ;  a  trans-continental 
railroad  before  the  first  spike  is  driven ;  an  Erie  Canal  be- 
fore a  spade  is  handled ;  a  submarine  cable  joining  two 
continents  before  the  Great  Eastern  is  built;  a  Brooklyn 
bridge  before  the  first  cable  is  swung. 

It  is  in  these  lines  that  the  greatest  progress  has  been 
made,  the  greatest  benefits  conferred  upon  mankind.  New 
methods  of  traffic  and  communication  have  enabled  us  to 
utilize  the  fields,  the  forests,  the  mines,  and  to  furnish 
profitable  employment  to  millions.  The  life  of  John  A. 
Roebling  contributed  to  these  ends.  He  was  the  first  to 
conceive  the  idea  of  a  long  span  suspension  bridge,  and 
with  masterly  courage  he  executed  it,  practically  in  the  face 
of  predictions  of  failure  on  the  part  of  the  leading  en- 
gineers of  the  day. 

He  surveyed  and  located  the  line  to  Pittsburgh,  from 
Harrisburg  across  the  Alleghanies.  He  designed  new  forms 
of  aqueducts  to  carry  the  waters  of  canals  over  chasms  and 
shallow  streams.  He  saw  the  necessity  of  a  substitute  for 
the  bulky  and  heavy  ropes  used  to  draw  canal  boats  up  long 
elevations,  and  his  fertile  mind  devised  machinery  for  the 
making  of  wire  rope,  of  which  he  was  the  first  manufac- 
turer in  this  country,  and  which  was  the  foundation  of  the 
great  Roebling  works. 

With  the  daring  of  the  pioneer  he  blazed  new  pathways 
and  created  new  enterprises  and  industries,  which  furnished 
employment  to  thousands.  He  broke  down  nature's  barriers, 
bridged  impassable  rivers  and  mighty  chasms,  and  made 


17 

easy  communication  and  trade  between  great  and  growing 
populations. 

When  one  pictures  the  closer  relations  and  the  increased 
commerce  between  different  sections  ;  the  riches  and  com- 
forts and  blessings  that  followed  in  the  pathway  of  this 
pioneer,  it  would  seem  that  his  countryman,  Schiller,  had 
him  in  mind  when  he  said  : 

"  The  toil  of  science  swells  the  wealth  of  art." 

America  is  a  cosmopolitan  country,  and  the  typical 
American  has  in  his  veins  the  blood  of  all  nations.  He  is 
the  evolved  product  of  hundreds  and  thousands  who  have 
come  hither  from  abroad,  found  homes  upon  our  hospitable 
shores,  and,  adapting  themselves  to  the  genius  of  our  insti- 
tutions, have  become  part  of  the  warp  and  woof  of  our 
nation's  life.  This  republic  owes  much  to  the  sons  of  the 
fatherland  who  have  settled  upon  our  soil  and  been  loyal  to 
our  institutions. 

No  race  has  been  more  reliable,  more  consistent  for  the 
principles  of  conservatism  and  common  honesty  and  right, 
more  steadfast  in  their  devotion  to  the  principles  of  our 
government,  than  the  Germans  who  have  made  this  their 
home. 

Mr.  Roebling  was  one  of  these  and  he  loved  his  adopted 
country  and  was  proud  to  become  an  American  citizen. 
In  the  early  days  of  the  Civil  War  he  evinced  his  patriotism 
and  loyalty  by  proposing  and  subscribing  to  a  fund  to  arm 
and  equip  volunteers  to  defend  the  flag.  He  believed  in  his 
republic,  and  he  was  willing  to  make  sacrifices  in  service  or 
money  to  save  it  from  destruction. 

In  a  sense  no  monument  is  needed  to  preserve  the 
memory  or  fame  of  this  patriotic  citizen  and  epoch-making 
manufacturer  and  engineer.  His  works  are  his  monuments. 


18 

In  the  East  the  memorial  of  his  genius  links  together 
the  divided  sections  of  the  metropolis  of  our  country 
and  looks  down  upon  the  commerce  of  the  world.  In 
the  North  it  spans  Niagara's  mighty  cataracts  and 
makes  a  pathway  between  two  nations.  In  the  West, 
his  early  home,  the  waters  of  the  Ohio  and  other  streams 
are  crossed  by  suspended  highways  fashioned  by  his  talent 
and  skill.  So  long  as  these  shall  stand  or  the  principle  of 
their  construction  be  observed,  his  fame  is  secure. 

This  monument  is  raised  not  more  to  him  than  to  our- 
selves— a  sign  to  all  the  world  that  knows  his  works,  that 
here  he  lived.  It  is  the  embodiment  of  civic  pride  and 
filial  affection,  and  our  citizens  and  the  sons  of  John  A. 
Roebling  have  done  honor  to  themselves  in  honoring  the 
benefactor  and  father.  Fortunate  that  he  should  leave  be- 
hind those  who  could  carry  on  the  work  and  enterprises  he 
conceived.  Great  men  do  not  always  live  to  see  the 
accomplishment  of  their  mission. 

Moses  never  entered  the  promised  land  ;  but  the  children 
of  Israel  went  on  to  Canaan.  Reynolds  fell  at  Gettysburg 
before  the  decisive  hour;  but  the  battle  continued  and 
Gettysbury  was  won.  Lincoln  died ;  but  the  Union  he 
loved  went  on  to  greater  glories. 

John  A.  Roebling  never  saw  or  realized  his  conception 
of  the  aerial  structure  that  arches  the  East  river,  but  a  loving 
and  able  son  carried  on  and  successfully  completed  this 
project  of  his  inventive  mind. 

The  enterprise  which  he  left  with  a  hundred  employes 
has  since  marshalled  a  host  of  eight  thousand. 

Fitting  it  is  that  his  monument  should  be  placed  in  this 
community.  Here  let  it  stand  to  tell  the  story  of  a  great 
intellectual  and  practical  engineer;  of  a  scientific  manufac- 


19 

turer  who  revolutionized  conditions  and  who  brought  honor 
and  reputation  and  prosperity  to  his  adopted  city. 

The  work  of  this  committee  of  citizens  who  conceived 
this  monument — and  whose  worthy  efforts  to-day  crowns 
with  success,  has  attracted  attention  throughout  our  country 
and  even  across  the  seas ;  because  the  subject  of  their 
memorial  is  measured  by  no  local  limitations,  but  is  of 
national  and  international  fame.  The  committee's  work  is 
done ;  they  have  rendered  our  community  a  great  service 
and  deserve  the  thanks  of  the  public,  and  their  greatest 
reward  is  the  success  of  their  efforts  in  the  consummation 
of  this  day.  As  they  lay  aside  their  duties,  on  their  behalf, 
I  present  this  statue  to  the  city — a  tribute  to  their  patriotic 
efforts  and  a  lasting  reminder  of  the  achievements  of  an 
honored  citizen  of  Trenton. 

Here  it  rests,  a  companion  to  yonder  monument  of 
Washington.  Both  of  these  subjects  were  engineers ;  one 
journeyed  with  Braddock  to  Fort  Duquesne,  when  the 
Alleghany  and  the  Monangahela  flowed  through  a  wilder- 
ness ;  the  other  settled  near  the  same  spot  at  a  time  when 
it  was  almost  the  western  frontier  of  the  active  civilization 
of  the  Republic  and  helped  to  open  it  to  traffic  and  com- 
munication. 

The  one  made  Trenton  historic  on  the  field  of  battle ; 
the  other  made  it  historic  in  the  field  of  industry.  One 
triumphed  here  in  war  and  laid  the  foundations  of  national 
independence ;  the  other  triumphed  here  in  peace  and  laid 
the  foundations  of  a  new  and  abiding  prosperity. 

These  two  monuments  typify  each  its  particular  phase 
of  American  life ;  each  parallels  and  complements  the 
other;  each  is  a  memorial  of  achievements  wrought  and 
an  inspiration  to  glories  yet  to  be. 


20 


John  A.  Roebling  filled  such  an  important  place  in 
American  progress  that  the  lessons  of  his  life  are  needed 
by  posterity.  It  is  proper  that  his  career  should  be  re- 
viewed and  its  incidents  told  on  this  occasion.  It  is  a 
great  subject  with  which  we  have  to  deal. 

We  are  fortunate  in  having  as  the  orator  of  this  occasion 
one  whose  connections  with  the  family  of  Mr.  Roebling 
are  sufficiently  close  to  enable  him  to  be  familiar  with  the 
incidents  of  his  life,  and  sufficiently  removed  to  make  him 
an  unprejudiced  and  faithful  biographer. 

I  take  pleasure  in  presenting  as  the  orator  of  the  day, 
Mr.  Henry  D.  Estabrook,  of  New  York  city. 


Address  of 
Mr.  Henry  D.  Estabrook. 


who  knew  him  best  affirm  that  the  statue  of 
John  Augustus  Roebling,  which  you,  the  citizens 
of  Trenton,  have  here  and  now  erected  to  his 
memory,  is  a  true  and  faithful  likeness.  But  it  is  more. 
Through  some  Promethian  fire  that  flames  once  in  a  life- 
time in  the  heart  of  genius,  the  sculptor  has  "  in  this  rough 
work  shaped  out  a  man." 

In  "The  Winter's  Tale,"  Leontes  asks,  "What  fine 
chisel  could  ever  yet  cut  breath?"  But  does  not  this  image 
breathe  ?  Look !  It  exhales  a  personality,  and  he  whose 
plastic  skill  evoked  the  miracle  might  well  stand  in  my 
place  and  say  to  you — in  the  very  words  of  Shakespeare : 

"  If  you  can  behold  it, 
I'll  make  the  statue  move  indeed,  descend 
And  take  you  by  the  hand." 

I  am  expected  by  those  having  these  ceremonies  in 
charge  to  translate  into  words  what  the  sculptor  has  so 
admirably  expressed  in  bronze,  namely,  the  type  and 
quality,  the  idiosyncrasy  of  your  famous  townsman.  But 
words  are  all  too  plastic  for  such  a  task.  As  if  his  nature 
had  been  subdued  to  what  it  worked  in,  the  Iron  Master 
of  Trenton  was  a  man  of  iron.  Iron  was  in  his  blood,  and 
sometimes  entered  his  very  soul ;  a  man  of  iron,  with  the 
virtues  of  iron  and  the  peccancies  of  iron  to  his  account, 


22 

and  John  A.  Roebling  as  he  was,  as  you  knew  him,  head 
bared  to  the  blows  of  fortune  or  the  storms  of  heaven,  eyes 
fixed  unwaveringly  on  whatever  object  he  had  in  hand  ; 
poised,  confident,  unyielding,  imperious  and  proud,  John  A. 
Roebling  is  there — seated  forever  on  yonder  pedestal. 

Fellow-citizens,  the  unveiling  of  a  statue  is  the  unveiling 
of  a  mystery.  It  is  the  revelation  of  a  life,  the  denoue- 
ment of  a  career.  A  statue  is  an  apparition — an  apparition 
that  lingers,  a  ghost  transfixed,  immutable  thought  uttered 
in  brazen  metaphor. 

And  yet,  even  a  bronze  statue,  with  its  solemn  fixity  of 
meaning,  must  have  been  prefigured  in  the  genial  clay — soft 
and  plasmic,  shaped  by  a  touch,  yielding  to  a  finger  tip. 
So  the  character  it  portrays,  however  obdurate,  begins  in 
protoplasm  ;  and  the  matrix  of  circumstance,  in  which  all  of 
us  are  molded — do  we  fashion  it  ourselves,  as  the  grub 
fashions  its  cocoon,  or  is  there  a  Sculptor —  a  Divinity  that 
shapes  our  ends,  rough  hew  them  how  we  will  ?  The  old 
adage  declares  that  man  proposes  and  God  disposes ; 
or,  as  the  Bible  puts  it,  "A  man's  heart  deviseth  his  way; 
but  the  Lord  directeth  his  steps."  Meaning  that  every 
man  may  realize  himself  as  the  Almighty  made  him,  which 
is  a  spiritual  fulfillment ;  or  he  may  make  himself,  after 
a  pattern  of  his  own  invention,  and  live  deluded — a  som- 
nambulist— till  the  great  awakening.  Never  believe  that 
man  is  simply  the  creature  of  circumstance,  the  sport  of 
chance,  the  passive  issue  of  his  heredity  or  environment. 
These  may  be  hindrances  or  helps  according  as  they  are 
used,  but  the  agency,  the  power  to  conquer,  is  the  man  as 
God  made  him.  Every  hour  every  day  is  time  enough, 
every  place  everywhere  is  opportunity  enough  for  a  man  to 
be  what  he  ought  to  be,  and  unless  he  is,  and  regardless  of 
his  accomplishment,  he  will  miss  the  joy  of  living — the  joy 


23 

which  is  not  in  mind  alone,  nor  in  heart  alone,  but  in  that 
commingling  of  mind  and  heart,  justice  and  mercy,  that 
sanctions  and  sanctifies  accomplishment. 

These  comments  are  not  unrelated  to  the  life  of  John 
A.  Roebling,  but  are  rather  suggested  by  it.  His  biography, 
written  by  the  eldest  son,  is  yet  in  manuscript  and  may 
never  be  published ;  but  it  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
books  I  ever  read.  It  is  remarkable  for  its  genuine  litera- 
ture, which  is  Arcadian  and  original ;  remarkable  for  its 
naive  philosophy,  a  trifle  bilious,  may  be,  but  honest  and 
unlacquered  ;  remarkable  for  its  analysis  of  men  and  events 
and  for  an  acidulous  humor  that  is  almost  styptic ;  but 
chiefly  is  it  remarkable  for  the  frank  revealment  of  the  in- 
time  vitae,  the  qualities  and  inequalities  of  the  extraor- 
dinary man  who  was  his  father.  Unconsciously  to  himself, 
perhaps,  the  biographer  has  given  us  a  study  in  evolution, 
with  the  factors  of  heredity,  environment,  the  struggle  for 
existence,  and  all  the  rest  of  it,  plus  a  psychic  something 
that  Darwinism  might  consider  negligible. 

John  Augustus  Roebling  was  born  June,  1806,  in 
Miilhausen,  Germany,  and  the  State  of  Thiiringen.  Miil- 
hausen  is  an  old  walled  town  founded  in  the  year  800. 
The  wall  was  really  built  to  keep  people  out,  though  why 
anybody  should  want  to  get  into  Miilhausen  is  matter  of 
wonderment  after  reading  a  description  of  it.  You  could 
easier  surmise  that  the  wall  was  to  prevent  escape,  just  as 
prisoners  are  immured  to  insure  their  whereabouts.  Miil- 
hausen— in  the  words  of  Tennyson — is 

"  A  sleepy  town,  where  under  the  same  wheel 
"  The  same  old  rut  is  deepened  year  by  year." 

As  for  Thiiringen,  it  is  one  of  the  poorest  of  the  Ger- 
man States.  The  land  is  high  and  stony  and  cold.  A  yield 


24 

of  fifteen  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre  is  exceptional,  and 
the  other  crops  are  quite  as  scanty.  It  was  only  by  hard 
work  and  frugality  to  the  utmost  of  self-denial  that  the 
people  were  able  to  eke  out  an  existence.  In  those  days 
there  were  no  factories  in  Miilhausen,  the  mechanics  and 
artisans  doing  their  work  in  their  own  little  houses,  the  whole 
family  assisting,  the  women  working  quite  as  hard  as  the 
men.  For  more  than  a  thousand  years  there  had  been 
hard  work  in  Miilhausen  but  no  enterprise  whatever,  and 
work  without  enterprise  is  a  kind  of  catalepsy.  Life  was 
stereotyped,  society  stratified. 

To  a  man  like  Polycarp  Roebling,  father  of  John  Roeb- 
ling,  the  prescriptive  life  of  this  old  German  village  was 
by  no  means  irksome.  He  kept  a  tobacco  shop  and  man- 
aged to  smoke  as  much  tobacco  as  he  sold.  Smoking  in. 
Germany,  you  know,  is  a  solace,  whereas  in  America  it  is 
an  employment.  To  the  German  smoke  is  a  nimbus  and 
begets  reverie  and  an  introspective  philosophy. 

So  Polycarp  Roebling  loved  Miilhausen  and  lived  and 
died  there,  in  spite  of  his  son's  efforts  to  lure  him  to 
America.  His  sainted  namesake  had  been  burned  at  the 
stake  for  cherishing  certain  opinions.  Nothing  of  this  kind 
was  likely  to  happen  in  Mulhausen,  but  no  telling  what 
the  wild  Indians  might  do  in  Pennsylvania  or  New  Jersey, 
and  Polycarp  Roebling  held  opinions  on  a  variety  of  sub- 
jects for  which  he  was  willing  to  smoke  but  by  no  means 
willing  to  burn.  Moreover,  he  was  accustomed  to  Mul- 
hausen beer.  It  was  not  possible  that  beer  like  this  could 
be  found  in  all  the  world,  and  what  was  there  in  America 
to  compensate  for  such  a  loss?  It  was  also  true  that  sur- 
prising things  were  happening  in  the  United  States. 
Nothing  ever  happened  in  Mulhausen,  and  a  surprise  of 
any  kind  was  as  disturbing  to  the  old  gentleman  as  a  poke 


25 

in  the  ribs ;  it  was  a  species  of  impertinence.  The  grand- 
son assures  us  that  under  no  circumstances  would  his 
grandfather  open  a  letter  on  the  same  day  it  was  received, 
for  no  particular  reason  unless  it  were  to  tease  the  curiosity 
of  his  wife,  whose  temperament  was  of  quite  another  sort. 
Yes,  the  mother  differed  greatly  from  the  father  in 
character  and  disposition,  and  John  A.  Roebling  was  the 
son  of  his  mother.  To  her  Miilhausen  was  a  pent-up 
Utica.  She  was  a  woman  of  tremendous  activity,  mental 
and  physical.  Deep  in  her  soul  she  nourished  ambitions 
which  became  tragedies  through  very  hopelessness.  The 
fate  of  Tantalus  was  cruel  but  not  unmitigated,  for  he  at 
least  saw  something  towards  which  to  struggle ;  had  she 
been  Tantalus  mythology  might  be  different.  But  to  skin 
a  flint,  to  milk  a  he-goat  into  a  sieve,  as  the  saying  is — 
that  is  what  life  in  Miilhausen  meant  to  the  mother  of 
John  Roebling.  And  yet,  weary  as  she  was  of  much  doing 
and  no  performance  she  did  not  whimper  for  sympathy. 
She  worked  for  the  sake  of  work,  for  the  blessedness  of 
drudgery,  and  confronted  her  disappointments  with  a  stern 
and  Spartan  courage.  She  had  borne  four  children,  three 
sons  and  a  daughter,  but  it  was  not  until  her  youngest 
child,  John,  had  displayed  mental  qualities  to  distinguish 
him  even  in  the  eyes  of  strangers  that  there  dawned  upon 
her  the  full  significance  of  motherhood — its  doom,  its  glory, 
its  sacrifice,  its  triumph.  Thenceforth  ambition  had  but 
one  goal,  life  but  one  object — the  education  of  her  boy ; 
through  him  she  would  achieve,  through  him  she  would 
fulfil  her  destiny.  Work  was  redoubled — it  had  become  a 
sacrament.  Economies  were  multiplied — they  had  become 
a  rosary,  for  every  pfennig  saved  was  a  prayer  answered. 
The  members  of  her  family  were  incited  to  ceaseless  effort 
while  she,  the  mother,  brooded  and  safeguarded  the  fruits 


26 

of  that  effort.  Her  executive  faculties  developed  with 
their  exercise  and  she  managed  everything  and  everybody. 

Thus  it  was  that  John  Roebling  was  enabled  to  graduate 
from  the  Royal  University  of  Berlin  after  a  course  at  the 
Pedagogium  of  Erfurt,  and  thus  it  was  that  when,  shortly 
thereafter,  he  sailed  for  America,  he  carried  with  him  a 
patrimony  large  enough  to  insure  his  establishment. 

His  austere  mother,  who  had  been  regnant  and  supreme 
in  her  household — whom  an  artist  would  picture  as  a 
caryatid  holding  up  the  House  of  Roebling — this  heroic 
mother,  I  say,  accompanied  her  beloved  son  to  the  port  of 
embarkation  and  bade  him  farewell,  without  a  quiver  of 
the  lips  or  the  shedding  of  a  tear.  It  was  an  eternal  fare- 
well, for  almost  in  the  act  of  waving  her  adieux  she  was 
seized  with  a  mortal  malady  and  died — died  before  her 
son,  who  was  destined  to  play  so  conspicuous  a  part  in  the 
commercial  life  of  America,  and  for  whom  her  own  life 
had  been  one  long  travail,  had  set  foot  in  the  promised 
land.  Her  work  was  done.  She  had  met  her  destiny. 
There  was  in  this  self-immolation  the  fervor  and  the  pride 
of  accomplishment,  to  be  sure,  but  was  there  the  happi- 
ness of  fulfillment?  Alas  for  the  offices  of  love  without 
the  tenderness,  the  loveliness  of  love !  Alas  for  the  cark 
and  care  of  maternity  without  the  charm  and  witchery  of 
motherhood  !  Alas  for  the  cradle  without  a  lullaby  !  There 
is  a  deafening  silence  in  our  ears  when  the  heartstrings  vi- 
brate without  a  sound  ! 

At  Dr.  Unger's  Pedagogium,  in  Erfurt,  John  Roebling 
had  won  the  admiring  friendship  of  the  distinguished  doc- 
tor, whose  numerous  books  on  mathematics  are  to-day  part 
of  the  Roebling  library.  At  the  Royal  University  of  Ber- 
lin he  had  studied  architecture  and  engineering  with  Stuler 
and  Rabe ;  bridge  construction  with  Dietleyn ;  hydraulics 


27 

with  Eytelwein ;  languages  in  regular  course  and  philos- 
ophy under  the  great  Hegel,  who  openly  avowed  that  John 
Roebling  was  his  favorite  pupil. 

The  last  statement  is  important,  and  I  repeat  it.  John 
Roebling  was  the  favorite  pupil  of  the  immortal  Hegel. 

You  realize,  of  course,  that  the  function  of  a  teacher  is 
feminine.  When  a  school  boy  speaks  of  "  alma  mater " 
he  is  not  thinking  of  his  rhetoric.  "Alma  mater  "  is  always 
enciente,  and  her  children  wax  or  wane  on  what  she  feeds 
to  them,  whether  it  be  pap  or  pabulum.  And  John  A. 
Roebling  was  the  favorite  pupil  of  Hegel — a  colossal  dry- 
nurse  ! 

Hegel  is  one  of  the  epoch-makers  of  the  world.  In  the 
realm  of  pure  reason  he  ranks  with  Plato,  Descartes,  Spino- 
sa  and  Kant.  It  is  impossible  to  study  him  diligently  and 
not  be  profoundly  influenced  by  his  teachings,  and  for  a 
youth  like  John  Roebling  to  have  been  brought  into  inti- 
mate contact  with  his  dominating  personality  was  at  once  a 
privilege  and  a  calamity.  It  was  a  privilege  because  it 
opened  the  boy's  eyes  to  the  spiritual  reality  back  of  the 
"change  and  decay"  of  material  phenomena,  for  Hegel 
was  an  idealist  as  truly  as  Berkeley  or  the  Woman  of  Con- 
cord ;  it  was  a  privilege  because  he  was  taught  to  think 
independently  and  to  rely  upon  the  validity  of  his  own  con- 
clusions. It  was  a  calamity  because  it  begat  a  pride  and 
arrogance  of  opinion  and  a  frigid  intellectuality  that  came 
near  putting  the  heart  of  him  into  cold  storage.  And  yet 
Truth  never  had  a  more  honest  advocate  than  Hegel ; 
there  can  be  no  impeachment  of  his  integrity.  His  one 
purpose  in  life  was  to  answer  Job's  question — "  Canst  thou 
by  searching  find  out  God  ? "  And  he  found  his  God  in 
the  Universe  itself,  reduced  to  an  Idea.  His  religion  was  a 
religion  that  reveals  rather  than  is  revealed.  "  Religion," 


28 

said  he,  "is  man  in  the  presence  of  God."  A  sublime 
definition  if  it  does  not  lead  to  solipsism,  which  is  another 
name  for  Hegelianism.  God,  Man,  Religion,  the  Uni- 
verse— these  were  his  themes,  and,  says  a  recent  commen- 
tator, "We  may  safely  say  that  no  man  ever  handled  such 
lofty  themes  in  so  consistently  and  coldly  scientific  a  spirit. 
We  never  feel  the  beat  of  a  heart  in  his  writings — only  the 
pulse  of  thought.  A  manual  of  the  Differential  Calculus 
will  appear  a  warm  and  sentimental  treatise  when  compared 
with  the  merciless  pages  in  which  Hegel  anatomises  the 
soul  of  man  or  the  nature  of  the  Blessed  God.  Nothing 
that  he  has  said  will,  by  the  manner  of  his  saying  it,  make 
any  one  the  braver  for  reading  it  or  the  better  for  remem- 
bering it.  The  philosopher  has  almost  if  not  altogether 
eaten  out  the  man."  And  John  Roebling  was  the  favorite 
of  this  prodigy  ! 

Fellow  citizens,  the  peculiarities  and  even  the  infirmities 
of  great  men  are  significant,  and  it  is  perhaps  wise  to  con- 
sider rather  than  to  ignore  them.  Please  note  how  this 
master  was  reflected  in  his  pupil : 

Hegel  was  a  metaphysician,  so  was  John  Roebling — 
metaphysics  was  his  dissipation.  The  time  others  spent  in 
amusements,  the  reading  of  polite  literature  or  impolite 
newspapers,  John  Roebling  devoted  to  metaphysics.  His 
son  and  biographer  has  a  manuscript  volume  of  thousands 
of  pages  written  by  his  father,  called  "Roebling's  Theory 
of  the  Universe."  I  have  not  read  this  book — Heaven 
forfend  that  I  should  ever  be  asked  to  ! 

Hegel  was  an  idealist;  so  was  John  Roebling,  who 
scouted  the  atomic  theory.  His  son,  Washington,  had 
studied  the  chemistry  of  Dalton  and  attempted  to  combat 
his  father's  arguments  ;  "  but,"  says  he,  "  father  would  damn 
my  atoms  " — and  with  loud  and  angry  vociferation.  This 


29 

was  hardly  a  pious  way  to  resolve  matter  into  spirit,  but  it 
was  strictly  Hegelian. 

Hegel  was  a  wizard  at  dialectics — a  priori  reasoners 
usually  are.  His  categories  are  so  many  pigeon  holes  for 
the  classification  of  thoughts.  Indeed,  Hegel's  Logic 
is  a  dictionary  of  thoughts  instead  of  words.  He  loved  to 
"  argufy  " — and  so  did  John  Roebling.  A  sermon  or  ethical 
discourse  that  John  Roebling  once  heard  he  could  recall 
almost  verbatim,  and  would  amplify  into  an  interminable 
harangue,  with  his  children  as  a  constrained  but  respectful 
audience.  The  fact  that  they  did  not  understand  in  the 
least  what  he  was  talking  about  mattered  not  at  all.  He 
would  talk  at  them  by  the  hour,  while  the  poor  victims 
would  blink  in  the  illumination  of  his  soliloquy  like  young 
owls  in  the  sunshine.  It  seemed  to  them  that  their  father 
was  trying  to  define  God  as  a  Vacuum.  But,  as  Carlyle 
says,  "words  are  linear,  character  is  solid,"  and  even  Hegel 
would  admit  that  we  live  in  a  world  of  three  dimensions. 

Hegel  was  no  lover  of  nature;  to  him  art  was  every- 
thing. Like  Sidney  Smith's  egotist,  he  would  dare  to 
speak  disrespectfully  of  the  equator.  Hegel  was  never 
heard  to  exclaim  upon  the  beauties  of  a  landscape — neither 
was  John  Roebling. 

As  a  teacher  Hegel  differed  utterly  from  the  wise  and 
gentle  Froebel.  He  contended  that  it  was  dangerous  to 
make  education  pleasant  to  children,  and  that  they  ought 
to  be  "broken  in."  To  me  this  seems  a  harsh  and  ugly 
doctrine,  but  John  Roebling  took  stock  in  it.  His  own 
pathway  to  knowledge  had  been  strewn  with  more  thorns 
than  roses,  but  he  knew  what  he  knew,  and,  like  the  rest 
of  us,  possibly  thought  he  knew  a  great  deal  more  than  he 
did.  His  student  note  books  are  preserved  and  prove  that 
his  work  at  the  university  had  been  desperate  and  unre- 


30 

minting.  Small  wonder  that,  proudly  satisfied  with  his  own 
accomplishment,  he  should  insist  upon  the  same  hard  cur- 
riculum for  his  offspring.  Poverty  and  ambition,  twin 
spurs  goading  him  to  a  poignancy  of  effort,  had  won  him 
the  race,  and  so  it  followed,  in  his  logic,  that  youth  must 
be  stung  and  prodded  into  action. 

The  laws  of  his  household  were  Draconian,  and 
prompt  retribution  followed  their  infraction.  Even  to  be 
sick  was  culpable,  just  as  being  a  common  scold  was  form- 
erly a  misdemeanor,  and  the  dereliction  was  remedied  by 
like  means,  to  wit,  the  ducking  stool ;  though  it  is  fair  to 
say  that  when  guilty  himself  of  being  sick  John  Roebling 
took  his  own  medicine.  I  know  not  if  it  is  a  peculiarity  of 
idealists,  but  those  of  you  who  have  read  Berkeley  will  re- 
call his  addiction  to  tar-water.  Tar-water  was  the  lustral 
water  par  excellence,  the  grand  catholicon  for  the  cure  of 
everything.  What  tar-water  was  to  Bishop  Berkeley,  cold 
water  was  to  John  Roebling.  Every  book  ever  published 
on  hydropathy  John  Roebling  bought  and  studied,  and 
applied  its  teachings  according  to  his  own  notions — not 
with  the  cautious,  tentative  methods  of  a  physician  but  in 
the  large,  generous,  voluminous  manner  of  an  engineer. 
After  all,  what  was  hydropathy  but  a  branch  of  hydraulics? 

Now,  parental  discipline  is  all  right,  coercion  is  all  right, 
even  castigation  is  all  right  if  administered  con  amore,  so 
to  speak.  But  John  Roebling  sometimes  punished  in 
anger,  which  is  not  punishment  but  truculence.  Is  there 
a  mother's  son  of  us  who  has  not  often  recalled  with  a 
grimace,  half  whimsical  and  wholly  forgiving,  the  pendant 
whip,  kept  for  terror  rather  than  for  use,  and  more  re- 
spected by  the  "  harmless  necessary  cat  "  than  by  his  grace- 
less boyhood  ?  Has  he  not  in  after  years  rallied  his  blessed 
mother  on  the  set  speech  which  always  prefaced  her 


31 

occasional  application  of  that  whip,  to  the  effect  that  it 
hurt  her  more  than  it  did  him ;  which  statement,  however 
doubted  then,  he  knows  now  to  have  been  the  fact?  I 
fancy  there  are  few  such  hallowed  memories  clustering 
about  the  twig  of  birch  that  decorated  the  home,  and  eke 
the  prancing  legs,  of  the  Roebling  youngsters.  That 
birchen  rod  meant  business  !  It  may  be  parental  neglect 
or  maudlin  selfishness  to  spare  the  rod  and  spoil  the  child, 
but  on  the  whole  I  had  rather  spare  the  child  and  spoil  the 
rod  ;  I  had  rather  span  the  gulf  between  life  and  death  with 
the  tender  chords  of  memory  of  those  for  whose  being  I  am 
responsible,  than  to  bridge  with  steel  cables  the  gorge  of  Ni- 
agara, the  East  River  or  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  And  if  John 
Roebling  could  speak  he  would  say  Amen  !  to  this ;  for 
with  advancing  years  his  rigorous  notions  underwent  many 
displacements,  Hegel  himself  being  displaced  by  Emerson. 

But  even  so,  I  am  sorry  this  faulty  thread  should  be 
traced  in  the  seamless  shroud  I  would  fain  weave  for  so 
great  a  man.  It  is  a  defect  exaggerated,  perhaps,  by  that 
very  greatness,  like  a  pinch  too  much  of  carbon  in  a  mass 
of  metal.  I  emphasize  it  for  two  reasons ;  because  it 
illustrates  a  cardinal  difference  between  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New — between  the  old  ideas  and  the  new — 
between  Hegel  and  Froebel,  and  to  thank  God  that  Frce- 
bel  triumphed  ! 

John  Roebling  set  sail  for  America  in  the  year  1831, 
and  landed  on  our  shores  a  young  man  of  twenty-five,  seem- 
ingly equipped  for  any  battle  that  awaited  him.  He  was  a 
most  accomplished  gentleman.  If  a  wiseacre  had  predicted 
his  failure  it  would  have  been  on  the  very  ground  that  he 
was  too  accomplished,  that  his  learning  and  talents  were  too 
various  ever  to  focus  in  a  particular  vocation — especially 
the  vocation  of  a  farmer,  which  he  had  deliberately  chosen. 


32 

He  had  no  knowledge  of  the  science  of  farming ;  indeed, 
in  his  day  farming  scarcely  ranked  as  a  science,'  nor  had  he 
any  practical  experience  in  the  work  itself.  Nevertheless, 
he  had  chosen  to  become  a  farmer.  He  had  graduated 
from  the  greatest  university  in  the  world  as  an  architect  and 
engineer;  he  was  a  scholar  of  wide  reading;  he  was  a 
philosopher  of  the  transcendental  sort,  whom  an  American 
"  hustler  "  would  shy  at  as  a  dreamer ;  he  was  a  musician  of 
rare  skill  and  temperament;  he  was  the  master  of  three 
languages,  German,  French  and  English — but  what  had  all 
this  to  do  with  farming? 

And  yet  he  had  chosen  well,  at  least  for  the  time  being. 
In  the  first  place  his  choice  had  led  to  a  thorough  study  of 
American  history  and  geography.  His  knowledge  of  the 
topography,  climatic  and  political  conditions,  the  advantages 
and  disadvantages  of  the  various  States  in  our  Union  was 
as  accurate  as  if  he  had  personally  visited  every  one  of 
them.  The  reasons  set  forth  in  his  diary  for  locating  as  he 
did  are  most  convincing.  In  the  next  place,  he  forthwith 
invested  all  his  money  in  desirable  lands  at  cheap  prices, 
thus  preventing  its  dissipation  in  some  visionary  enterprise. 
And  so  owning  good  farm  lands  well  located  he  had,  from 
the  very  start,  insured  his  living  and  his  independence. 

The  lands  selected  by  him  were  in  the  western  part  of 
Pennsylvania,  Butler  county,  about  twenty-five  miles  from 
the  new  town  of  Pittsburg.  Here  he  and  a  few  of  his  com- 
patriots purchased  some  7,000  acres  at  an  average  price  of 
$1.37  an  acre,  and  founded  the  village  of  Germania,  after- 
wards called  Saxonburg.  It  was  a  wild  and  isolated  country 
with  a  future  as  blank  as  his  own,  where,  as  Cowper  would 
say: 

"  History,  not  wanted  yet, 

Leaned  on  her  elbow  watching  Time,  whose  course, 
Eventful,  should  supply  her  with  a  theme." 


Copper  Wreath,  sent  by  the  city  of 
Miilhausen,  Germany,  as  the  tribute  of  its 
citizens  to  the  memory  of  John  A.  Roeb- 
ling. 


33 

I  may  as  well  admit  that  John  Roebling  never  became  a 
first  class  farmer.  He  made  a  living,  to  be  sure,  but  it  was 
a  meagre  living,  and  if  by  good  luck  he  got  a  little  money 
ahead  he  was  sure  to  give  it  to  some  German  emigrant  in 
worse  plight  than  himself.  He  even  tried  to  supplement 
farming  with  other  employments,  such,  for  instance,  as  the 
breeding  of  canary  birds.  Fancy  the  engineer  of  Brooklyn 
bridge  raising  canary  birds  for  the  profit  in  it !  However, 
that  peerless  creation  was  not  suggested  by  the  wire  cage  of 
a  canary,  and  he  soon  abandoned  the  enterprise  as  unpro- 
ductive— unproductive  of  money,  I  mean,  for  the  birds 
themselves  were  scandalously  productive,  though  the  per- 
centage of  singers  was  wholly  disproportionate  to  the  total 
output.  His  birds  turned  out  to  be  mostly  females  that 
could  not  sing,  or  males  that  steadfastly  refused  to  sing,  at 
least  under  the  tutelage  of  John  Roebling.  So  he  transferred 
the  business  to  his  father-in-law,  a  dear,  delightful  old 
German,  whose  little  farm  at  Saxonburg  was  a  cultivated 
wilderness  of  flowers  and  fruits  and  vegetables,  and  whose 
dogs  and  cats  and  birds  were  the  most  licensed  members  of 
his  household.  He  made  bird  breeding  pay,  though  truth 
to  say  he  cared  little  whether  it  paid  or  not  so  long  as  the 
birds  sang  to  him,  which  they  did  from  morning  till  night 
in  a  perfect  gurge  of  melody  ! 

One  day  it  occurred  to  Farmer  Roebling  that  he  might 
patch  out  his  income  if,  between  crops  and  during  the  win- 
ter months,  he  could  obtain  employment  as  an  assistant  en- 
gineer in  making  surveys,  building  canals  and  dams  for 
slack-water  navigation,  and  such  like  work  that  was  going 
on  in  his  vicinity.  His  services  were  readily  accepted,  his 
real  merits  were  soon  recognized,  and  it  was  not  long  before 


34 

his  knowledge  and  skill  were  in  actual  demand.  Hence- 
forth the  farm  was  practically  abandoned,  so  far  as  John 
Roebling  was  concerned. 

The  very  oldest  of  you  may  recall  that  before  the  de- 
velopment of  railroads,  transportation  by  canal  was  con- 
sidered the  culmination  of  all  that  was  luxurious  and  rapid  in 
locomotion.  But  a  canal  could  not  cross  the  mountains — 
even  Yankee  ingenuity  could  not  compel  water  to  run  up 
hill.  The  canal  boat,  however,  was  under  no  such  lim- 
itation. It  was  made  to  cross  mountains  without  disturbing 
passengers  or  freight,  and  by  a  very  simple  expedient. 
The  boat,  you  understand,  was  built  in  sections  and  at  the 
base  of  a  mountain  would  be  abrupted,  loaded  on  to  a  port- 
age railroad,  section  by  section,  and  so  hauled  up  an  inclined 
plane  with  rope  and  windlass.  By  like  process  it  was 
lowered  to  a  canal  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  mountain,  its 
parts  once  more  articulated,  like  a  jointed  snake,  there 
hitched  to  an  expectant  mule  (with  a  "spanker "  appropriate 
to  the  craft)  and  so  went  bounding  over  the  billows  without 
regard  to  constables  or  speed  limit. 

Now  the  ropes  used  to  drag  these  boats  over  the  moun- 
tains were  clumsy  affairs,  several  inches  in  diameter,  made 
of  Kentucky  hemp.  They  were  costly  and  short-lived  and 
a  considerable  item  of  expense.  John  Roebling  opined 
that  if  a  rope  could  be  made  of  wire  flexible  enough  to  be 
wound  on  a  windlass,  it  ought  to  cost  little  more  than  a 
hempen  cable  and  would  possess  greater  tensile  strength 
with  one-fourth  the  diameter.  Moreover,  it  would  outlast 
a  dozen  ropes  woven  from  vegetable  fiber.  No  one  in 
America  had  ever  made  a  wire  rope  nor  even  seen  one. 
Roebling  himself  recalled  an  item  in  a  periodical,  sent  him 
from  Miilhausen,  to  the  effect  that  some  German  inventor 
had  produced  a  wire  rope,  and  he  concluded  that  what  an 


35 

indigenous  German  could  do  in  the  fatherland  a  trans- 
planted German  ought  to  do  in  America.  At  all  events 
the  idea  was  worth  a  trial. 

So  he  built  a  rope  walk  on  his  farm  at  Saxonburg,  pur- 
chased a  quantity  of  wire  deemed  suitable  for  his  purpose, 
instructed  his  friends  and  neighbors  in  the  art  of  rope 
twisting,  and  actually  fabricated  a  wire  rope  that  surprised 
his  most  buoyant  expectations.  It  was  a  remarkable 
achievement  and  almost  made  him  famous.  But  he  did 
not  stop  here ;  the  wire  rope  led  to  the  wire  cable,  still  to 
be  used  in  connection  with  canals.  It  seems  that  a  canal, 
which  is  really  an  artifical  river,  must  sometimes  cross  a 
natural  river.  That  is  to  say,  one  river,  instead  of  emptying 
into  another,  must  somehow  be  made  to  flow  above  it. 
Here,  of  course,  the  canal  becomes  a  wooden  aqueduct, 
but  a  gigantic  aqueduct,  capable  of  floating  a  flat  boat 
loaded  to  the  gun'ales.  In  those  days  the  building  of  such 
an  aqueduct  was  a  big  undertaking  and  hazardous  withal, 
for  frequently  the  ice  in  the  river  would  gorge  and  crush 
out  the  piers  and  abutments,  permitting  the  canal  itself  to 
join  the  procession  and  float  off  to  sea.  John  Roebling's 
inventive  mind  evolved  an  idea,  having  its  origin  in  a 
memory. 

While  yet  a  student  at  the  university,  one  of  his  vacation 
tramps  through  northern  Bavaria  had  brought  him  to  the 
town  of  Bamberg,  where  he  saw  for  the  first  time  a  bridge 
suspended  by  chains  spanning  a  small  stream  called  the 
Regnitz.  He  had  studied  this  structure,  sketched  it,  and 
made  it  the  subject  of  a  thesis.  Now  he  recalled  his 
youthful  essay  and  bethought  him  that  if  a  cross-river  aque- 
duct were  suspended  from  wire  cables,  so  much  stronger 
than  chains,  it  would  eliminate  piers  and  posts  and  other 
obstructions  and  leave  the  river  to  flow  at  its  own  sweet 


36 

will.  He  laid  his  plans  and  calculations  before  the  en- 
gineers of  a  canal  company  about  to  cross  the  Alleghany 
river  at  Pittsburg,  frankly  admitting  that  what  he  proposed 
to  do  was  without  precedent,  and  in  Germany  would 
doubtless  be  frowned  upon.  But  he  insisted  that  his  figures 
were  correct  and  spoke  for  themselves,  and  that  the  advan- 
tages to  be  gained  justified  some  risk.  In  short,  that  his 
scheme  ought  to  appeal  to  the  American  spirit  of  shrewd 
adventure  and  daring  enterprise. 

He  was  ordered  to  do  the  work,  and  set  about  it 
knowing  that  the  outcome  would  either  place  him  in  the 
forefront  of  American  engineers  or  ruin  him  forever.  The 
undertaking  was  a  success  and  led  to  many  com- 
missions of  like  kind,  several  of  these  suspension  aqueducts 
being  still  in  use,  unimpaired,  and  seemingly  good  for  all 
eternity. 

Now  a  layman  can  see  that  a  suspension  aqueduct  is 
nothing  less  than  a  suspension  bridge,  carrying  an  enormous 
load.  John  Roebling  recognized  the  fact  and  pondered  it ; 
the  whole  world  knows  the  results  of  that  cerebration ! 

Before  he  had  completed  his  first  suspension  bridge  over 
the  Monongahela,  Mr.  Roebling  realized  that  he  must  have 
shops  and  machinery  and  possibly  mills  for  drawing  his  own 
wire,  and  he  further  realized  that  Saxonburg  was  not  a  suit- 
able location  for  such  a  plant.  On  the  advice  of  his  friend, 
Peter  Cooper,  whose  iron  foundries  were  at  Trenton,  he 
visited  this  Quaker  city,  studied  its  advantages,  purchased 
a  quantity  of  ground,  and  in  1849  removed  his  family  from 
Saxonburg  here,  the  journey  requiring  seven  full  days — 
accomplished  now  in  almost  as  many  hours.  Mr.  Roeb- 
ling was  the  architect  of  every  building  of  his  new  plant, 
and  the  inventor  and  designer  of  nearly  every  piece  of 
machinery  that  went  into  those  buildings;  for  it  was  not 


37 

until  years  afterward  that  he  could  be  persuaded  to  employ 
an  assistant  engineer  or  draughtsman. 

How  and  where  John  Roebling  found  time  to  do  all 
that  he  did — to  attend  scientific  conventions  and  write 
voluminously  for  scientific  journals ;  practice  the  flute  and 
piano ;  study  metaphysics  and  pour  forth  his  own  lucub- 
rations in  thousands  of  pages  of  manuscript ;  invent  tools 
and  machinery  and  make  his  own  drawings  for  the  patent 
office ;  design  bridges,  canals  and  portage  railroads  and 
himself  superintend  their  construction — how  he  achieved 
all  this,  I  say,  bewilders  imagination.  And  yet,  each  night 
before  retiring  his  daily  journal  and  note-books  must  be 
written  up  to  the  minutest  detail  if  it  took  till  morning  ! 
It  is  related  that  once  during  the  civil  war  General  Fre- 
mont sent  for  him  and  kept  him  waiting  in  the  ante-room. 
Whereupon  Mr.  Roebling  took  a  card  and  scribbled  some- 
thing to  this  effect :  "  Sir,  you  are  keeping  me  waiting. 
John  Roebling  has  not  the  leisure  to  wait  upon  any  man." 
His  rule  was  to  postpone  a  conference  if  the  gentleman 
with  whom  he  had  an  appointment  happened  to  be  five 
minutes  late  in  keeping  it.  It  was,  of  course,  this  egre- 
gious value  given  to  the  instant  that  enabled  John  Roeb- 
ling to  do  the  work  of  ten  men ;  but  to  my  thinking  he 
overdid  it.  A  man  may  become  a  miser  of  minutes  as 
well  as  of  pennies,  and  if  we  are  immortal — why,  what's 
the  hurry?  Time  drives  us  all,  I  suppose,  towards  our 
chrysalis,  the  grave ;  some  on  the  gallop  as  though  running 
to  a  fire,  some  on  a  jog-trot  as  though  out  for  an  airing. 
Well,  let  each  one  of  us  employ  his  time  as  may  best  con- 
duce— not  to  his  pleasure  but  to  his  happiness,  a  word  of 
highest  meaning;  remembering  that  John  Roebling  had  no 
time  to  be  really  happy — he  worked  too  hard. 

His  planning  of  the  Kentucky  bridge,  which  was  never 


38 

built;  the  planning  of  a  bridge  at  Wheeling,  the  actual 
erection  of  a  bridge  at  Cincinnati  and  even  the  wonderful 
bridge  over  Niagara  Falls,  were  only  preliminary  training  for 
the  monumental  work  that  was  to  cost  him  his  life  while 
crowning  it  with  glory. 

The  Brooklyn  Bridge,  commonly  so  called,  though  still 
often  referred  to  as  "The  Roebling  Bridge,"  hyphenates 
Long  Island  and  the  island  of  Manhattan,  and  its  con- 
struction made  possible  the  Greater  City  of  New  York. 
When  Mr.  Roebling  presented  his  plans  for  this  amazing 
structure  the  engineers  of  the  world  scoffed  at  them  as  au- 
dacious and  absurd.  If,  said  they,  he  should  succeed  in 
spinning  his  iron  filaments  over  so  vast  a  stretch,  what  use- 
ful purpose  would  be  accomplished  ?  Pouf !  Roebl ing's 
tangle  of  wires  was  a  web  to  catch  flies — he  was  courting 
the  fate  of  Arachne  in  the  fable.  It  was,  in  sooth,  a  work 
of  unexampled  difficulty — looming,  portentious,  Titanic. 
He  fought  his  detractors  inch  by  inch  for  the  right  to  try, 
defending  his  ideas  with  such  vehemence  and  courage  that 
finally  this  right  was  given  him.  The  great  work,  begun 
by  himself  after  his  own  designs,  was  completed  by  his 
son.  It  is  called  to-day,  in  the  candid  admiration  of  man- 
kind, the  Eighth  Wonder  of  the  World. 

Originally  planned  for  a  calculated  load  with  a  margin  of 
safety,  the  exigencies  of  traffic  have  long  since  burdenel 
this  noble  structure  many  times  beyond  its  promise;  and 
yet,  within  the  last  few  weeks  the  board  of  experts  ap- 
pointed to  examine  its  condition  report  that  it  is  safe  and 
unhurt  and,  if  possible,  has  grown  stronger  with  use. 
Luckily  for  the  people  of  New  York,  John  Roebl  ing's 
promise  was  always  less  than  his  performance. 

But  Brooklyn  Bridge  is  more  than  a  crowded  high- 
way. It  is  a  thing  of  art,  beautiful  in  itself.  From  the  bed- 


39 

rock  of  a  mighty  river,  one  hundred  feet  below  its  surface, 
bastions  of  masonry  leap  towards  the  clouds  and  kindle  in 
the  distance  like  shafts  of  light.  The  tenuous  festoon  that 
seems  to  cling  to  them  floats  in  the  air — an  incredible  gos- 
samer woven  in  a  dream.  Yes,  Brooklyn  Bridge  is  beauti- 
ful !  All  the  latent  poetry  of  the  mathematician — and  in 
its  highest  reaches  mathematics  becomes  divinest  poetry ; 
all  the  estheticism  of  the  architect ;  all  the  musician's  sen- 
sitiveness to  harmony ;  all  the  mysticism  of  an  idealist 
philosphy ;  whatever  of  faith,  feeling,  reverence  John 
Roebling  cherished  in  his  heart,  was  here  voiced  like  a 
ringing  cry.  As  if  conscious  of  his  pending  doom,  his 
genius  stands  embodied  in  this  final  form — an  aspiration 
visible — a  soul's  bid  for  immortality  ! 


MAHLON    R.   MARGERUM 


1HN   C.  SCHWK17.KR. 


ONATHAN    H.    BLACKVVKI.L. 


The  Roebling 
Memorial  Committee 


Roebling  Memorial  Committee. 

The  erection  in  the  city  of  Trenton  of  a  monument  to 
the  memory  of  John  A.  Roebling  has  frequently  been 
considered,  but  until  the  organization  of  the  Roebling 
Memorial  Committee,  the  proposition  never  advanced  be- 
yond the  realm  of  discussion. 

The  credit  for  arousing  the  interest  of  the  people  of 
Trenton,  which  resulted  in  the  erection  of  the  monument, 
should  be  given  to  the  members  of  the  committee,  brief 
biographical  sketches  of  whom  follow  : 

HARRY   S.  MADDOCK. 

Harry  S.  Maddock,  President  of  the  Committee,  was 
born  in  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  July  15,  1861.  He  came  to 
Trenton  in  1875  where  he  has  since  resided. 

Mr.  Maddock  is  connected  with  the  firm  of  Thomas 
Maddock's  Sons  Company,  one  of  the  largest  and  most 
important  industries  of  Trenton,  and  the  oldest  manufac- 
turers of  sanitary  earthenware  in  America. 

He  is  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Police  Commissioners 
of  the  City  of  Trenton,  to  which  he  was  first  appointed  by 
Mayor  Sickel  in  1898.  He  has  been  re-appointed  by  suc- 
cessive Mayors  and  is  now  serving  his  third  term. 

Mr.  Maddock  is  a  high  degree  Mason,  a  Knight  Temp- 
lar, and  a  member  of  the  order  of  Elks. 

LOUIS  FISCHER. 

Louis  Fischer,  Secretary  of  the  Committee,  was  born 
in  Trenton  in  1863.  He  attended  the  schools  of  Tren- 


44 

ton,  and  in  1882  was  appointed  assistant  to  City  Clerk 
Alexander  C.  Yard. 

He  worked  subsequently  in  New  York  as  a  book-keeper, 
returning  to  Trenton  in  the  eighties,  when  he  entered  the 
shoe  business  in  which  he  has  been  engaged  ever  since. 

Mr.  Fischer  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Common 
Council  in  1902  and  re-elected  in  1904.  He  is  a  member 
of  the  Order  of  Elks,  the  Mercer  County  Wheelmen,  and 
a  number  of  other  organizations. 

PHILIP  FREUDENMACHER. 

Philip  Freudenmacher,  Treasurer  of  the  Committee, 
was  born  in  Trenton,  November  13th,  1856,  and  has 
always  lived  in  this  city. 

He  was  educated  in  the  Trenton  schools,  and  at  the 
age  of  eighteen  engaged  in  the  cigar  business.  He  is  presi- 
dent of  the  Peerless  Tobacco  Company  and  consulting 
manager  of  the  Peoples  Brewing  Company. 

Mr.  Freudenmacher  was  a  member  of  the  old  volunteer 
fire  department  of  which  he  was  made  chief  in  1888. 
He  was  the  first  chief  of  the  paid  department,  and  served 
for  six  years  as  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Fire  Com- 
missioners. 

Mr.  Freudenmacher  is  a  member  of  the  Common 
Council  from  the  third  ward.  He  belongs  to  a  number  of 
local  lodges  and  societies,  and  is  actively  interested  in 
matters  pertaining  to  the  welfare  of  his  native  city. 

JONATHAN  H.  BLACKWELL. 

Jonathan  H.  Blackwell  was  born  in  Hopewell,  N.  J., 
on  December  20th,  1841.  He  attended  the  public  schools 
of  his  native  place  and  supplemented  this  with  a  course 


45 

of  instruction  in  the  New  Jersey  Conference  Seminary  at 
Pennington  and  the  Claverack  Collegiate  Institute  on  the 
Hudson. 

At  the  age  of  eighteen  he  began  a  mercantile  career  in 
his  father's  store  at  Hopewell, where  he  remained  three  years. 
He  then  came  to  Trenton  where  he  was  employed  for  a 
year  when  he  moved  to  New  York.  In  1864  he  returned 
to  Trenton  and  formed  a  partnership  with  the  late  Wm. 
Dolton  in  the  grocery  business. 

Mr.  Blackwell  is  now  the  senior  member  of  the  firm  of 
J.  H.  Blackwell  &  Sons,  wholesale  grocers,  and  is  also 
interested  in  many  important  business  enterprises. 

In  1873  Mr.  Blackwell  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
Common  Council  of  Trenton.  The  following  year  he 
was  elected  to  represent  Mercer  County  in  the  New  Jer- 
sey State  Senate.  In  1878  he  was  appointed  by  Governor 
McClellan  a  commissioner  to  the  Paris  Exposition. 

He  is  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Managers  of  the  Sons 
of  the  Revolution  of  New  Jersey,  a  director  of  Mercer 
Hospital,  and  is  actively  interested  in  civic  affairs. 

GENERAL  C.  EDWARD  MURRAY. 

General  C.  Edward  Murray  was  born  in  Lambert- 
ville,  July  17th,  1863.  In  1865  his  parents  moved  to 
Trenton  where  he  has  since  resided.  He  was  educated 
in  the  schools  of  Trenton  and  in  1883  became  associated 
with  his  father  in  a  rubber  manufacturing  business  of 
which  he  became  later  the  sole  proprietor.  In  addition  to 
this  business,  he  is  interested  in  a  number  of  important 
industries  of  Trenton. 

General  Murray's  interest  in  public  matters  began  in  his 
youth  and  has  always  been  maintained.  In  1894  he  was 


46 

elected  City  Clerk,  which  office  he  kept  until  he  declined 
re-election  in  1904. 

He  enlisted  in  Company  A,  Seventh  Regiment,  N.  G. 
N.  J.,  in  1885,  and  rose  from  the  ranks  to  the  position  of 
Captain  and  Paymaster.  March  8th,  1905,  Governor 
Edward  C.  Stokes,  appointed  him  Quartermaster-General. 
He  was  commissioned  Brigadier  General,  April  5th,  1905. 

MAHLON  R.  MARGERUM. 

Mahlon  R.  Margerum  was  born  in  Trenton,  October 
28th,  1856.  He  was  educated  in  the  Trenton  schools 
and  began  his  business  career  with  the  firm  of  Hiram 
Rice  &  Co.,  grocers.  When  twenty-one  years  of  age 
he  engaged  in  business  for  himself  as  a  pork-packer  and 
has  since  widely  extended  his  business  interests. 

Mr.  Margerum  is  President  of  the  Peoples  Brewing 
Company,  Treasurer  and  General  Manager  of  the  Windsor 
Hotel  Co.,  and  Treasurer  of  the  Mercer  Bottling  Co.  He 
has  long  been  interested  in  military  affairs  and  was  ap- 
pointed by  former  Governor  Stokes  a  member  of  his  per- 
sonal staff.  Mr.  Margerum  is  Secretary  of  the  Inter-State 
Fair  Association,  and  has  through  his  energy  and  intelligent 
management  of  details,  contributed  largely  to  the  success 
of  this  institution. 

SAMUEL  WALKER. 

Samuel  Walker  was  born  in  Trenton,  October  1,  1860. 
He  graduated  from  the  Trenton  High  School  in  1879  and 
afterwards  read  law  in  the  office  of  Ex-Congressman  James 
Buchanan.  Hew  as  admitted  as  a  member  of  the  New 
Jersey  Bar  in  1883  and  has  since  been  engaged  in  the 
practise  of  law. 


47 

Mr.  Walker  is  one  of  the  directors  of  the  Trenton  Trust 
and  Safe  Deposit  Company,  Real  Estate  Title  Company, 
Keystone  Pottery  Company,  and  Potteries  Selling  Company. 

He  was  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Education  in  1882- 
1884;  Treasurer  of  the  City  of  Trenton  in  1892-1894; 
County  Treasurer  in  1894-1897  and  has  also  served  as  a 
member  of  the  Board  of  Police  Commissioners,  to  which 
position  he  was  appointed  by  Mayor  Frank  O.  Briggs  in 
1899. 

JOHN  C.  SCHWEIZER. 

John  C.  Schweizer  was  born  in  Zigishausen,  Wurttem- 
berg,  Germany,  March  3d,  1837.  After  attending  school 
in  his  native  country,  he  worked  as  an  apprentice  to 
a  machinist  until  he  was  sixteen  years  of  age,  when  he 
came  to  America. 

In  1862  he  returned  to  Germany,  where  he  resided  for 
a  year  and  a  half,  when  he  again  came  to  America  and 
entered  the  employ  of  the  Camden  and  Amboy  Railroad 
Company,  working  in  the  company's  shops  at  Bordentown, 
New  Jersey. 

In  1866  Mr.  Schweizer  moved  to  Trenton  and  settled  in 
the  borough  of  Chambersburg,  where  he  engaged  in  the 
dry  goods  and  grocery  business.  He  was  active  in  this 
business  for  a  period  of  thirty-five  years,  building  up  a  large 
and  successful  mercantile  establishment.  About  five  years 
ago  he  retired  from  business  life. 

Mr.  Schweizer  was  formerly  a  member  of  the  Common 
Council  of  Chambersburg  and  also  served  as  Com- 
missioner of  the  Sinking  Fund.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
Board  of  Fire  Commissioners  for  two  terms,  and  the  Board 
of  City  Assessors  for  one  term. 


48 

CHRISTIAN  GUENTHER. 

Christian  Guenther  was  born  in  Mulhausen,  Thurin- 
gen,  Germany,  August  22nd,  1834.  He  learned  the 
machinists'  trade  in  his  youth,  and  in  1852  left  Mul- 
hausen for  America.  Mr.  Guenther  worked  at  his  trade 
in  a  number  of  American  cities  and  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
civil  war  was  living  in  the  city  of  New  York. 

He  enlisted  in  1861  in  the  46th  New  York  Volunteers, 
and  was  wounded  at  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run.  In 
1863  he  was  honorably  discharged  from  the  Army  and 
moved  to  Trenton,  where  he  accepted  a  position  in  the 
employ  of  John  A.  Roebling. 

He  was  a  member  of  the  Council  of  the  Borough  of 
Chambersburg,  before  its  annexation  to  Trenton.  Mr. 
Guenther  is  still  employed  at  the  Roebling  works,  where 
he  has  worked  continuously  for  forty-five  years. 

His  long  connection  with  the  company,  his  personal  ac- 
quaintance with  John  A.  Roebling,  and  the  fact  that  he  and 
Mr.  Roebling  were  born  in  the  same  town  in  Germany, 
gave  to  Mr.  Guenther  an  added  interest  in  the  work  of  the 
Monument  Committee,  in  which  he  took  an  active  part. 


Press  Comments 


Press  Comments. 


TRUE  AMERICAN,  Trenton,  N.  J. 

"  The  Roebling  plant  and  Trenton  have  grown  together.  When 
John  A.  Roebling  came  to  New  Jersey's  capital  60  years  ago  he 
found  a  town  of  less  than  10,000  population.  The  mill  that  he 
started  for  the  manufacture  of  wire  rope  was  a  little,  one-story 
affair  ;  the  number  of  his  employes  was  so  small  that  he  could  keep 
their  accounts  in  his  head.  How  greatly  his  work  has  prospered 
under  his  guidance  and  that  of  his  successors,  and  how  it  has  con- 
tributed to  the  growth  of  Trenton  was  demonstrated  yesterday 
when  nigh  unto  10,000  men,  employes  of  the  John  A.  Roebling' s 
Sons  Company,  paraded  the  streets  of  Trenton  in  honor  of  the  de- 
dication of  a  statue  to  the  founder  of  the  house. 

Trenton  is  to-day  a  city  of  100,000  population  and  the  Roeblings 
by  furnishing  employment  to  such  a  vast  army  have  directly  con- 
tributed at  least  25,000  of  the  aggregate.  When  one  adds  another 
army  needed  to  supply  this  host  with  food  and  clothing,  means  of 
transportation  and  communication,  and  other  necessities  and  the 
luxuries  of  life,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  John  A.  Roebling's 
coming  to  Trenton  when  he  did  and  the  location  of  his  factory 
here,  account  for  half  the  population  of  which  New  Jersey's  capital 
boasts.  When  one  adds  to  this  the  influence  of  John  A.  Roebling 
and  his  successors  and  the  fruits  of  their  influence,  the  riddle  of  the 
Trenton  of  to-day,  a  State  capital  and  yet  a  hive  of  industry,  famed 
more  for  its  commodities  than  for  its  politics,  is  solved. 

Yesterday's  demonstration  was  most  noteworthy.  Comparatively 
few  of  the  people  of  Trenton  have  had  an  adequate  conception  of 
the  importance  of  the  Roebling  plant  to  the  city.  They  scarcely 
ever  gave  it  a  thought,  and  yet  that  plant  with  its  more  than  8,000 
employes  is  the  foundation  on  which  more  than  half  of  the  values 
of  Trenton's  property  are  laid. 

Yesterday's  demonstration  was  unusual.  Never  before  has  Tren- 
ton seen  such  a  parade.  Never  before  has  Cadwalader  Park,  in 
which  the  Roebling  monument  was  unveiled,  seen  such  a  multitude, 
variously  estimated  at  from  30,000  to  50,000.  Trenton  has  had 
military  parades  and  industrial  parades  galore,  but  never  a  parade  of 
such  an  army  of  employes  of  a  single  concern,  proud  of  their  con- 
nection therewith,  each  one  a  contributor  to  its  fame,  each  one  a 


52 

sharer  in  the  fruits  of  John  A.  Roebling's  engenuity,  the  genius  of 
his  sons  and  the  marvellous  executive  ability  that  have  made  pos- 
sible the  up-building  of  so  splendid  an  enterprise. 

It  was  an  uncontrovertible  argument  in  favor  of  the  maintenance 
of  our  industrial  system,  suffering  at  the  present  hour  from  the 
attacks  of  those  who  would  overthrow  it.  But  for  the  freedom  ac- 
corded individual  initiative  in  this  country  and  the  opportunity 
attached  to  such  freedom,  John  A.  Roebling  would  never  have  been 
attracted  to  these  shores.  With  governmental  restraint  upon  his 
engenuity,  he  would  probably  have  been  content  to  live  and  die 
without  giving  to  the  world  his  marvellous  suspension  bridges. 
There  would  not  be  in  Trenton  a  factory  supplying  the  homes  of 
8,000  men  with  greater  comforts  than  the  homes  of  men  ever  had 
under  a  system  of  independent  endeavors,  or  would  enjoy  under  a 
system  where  the  incapacity  and  dishonesty  of  government  super- 
visors impede  progress  and  blight  man's  prospects  for  the  future. 


SUNDAY  ADVERTISER,  Trenton,  N.  J. 

Thirty-nine  years  have  passed  since  the  death  of  John  Augustus 
Roebling,  and  it  is  a  magnificent  tribute  to  the  endurance  of  his 
achievements  and  the  strength  of  his  hold  upon  the  grateful  recol- 
lections of  his  fellow-citizens  that  at  this  late  day  they  join  with 
hearty  enthusiasm  in  the  dedication  of  an  imposing  monument  to 
his  memory.  Next  Tuesday  will  witness  the  dedicatory  ceremonies 
at  Cadwalader  Park  where  upon  a  pleasant  knoll  a  bronze  statue  of 
the  great  engineer  has  been  erected.  There  is  no  need  to  pronounce 
a  panegyric  upon  the  distinguished  dead  in  this  case.  His  works 
live  after  him  to  proclaim  his  creative  genius  and  to  tell  of  the  debt 
which  the  world  owes  to  his  beneficient  services.  The  mighty 
structures  which  span  once  impassable  rivers  and  threatening 
chasms,  affording  safe  and  easy  inter-communication  for  immense 
populations,  are  his  best  monument,  his  most  eloquent  eulogium. 
His  name  will  go  down  in  American  history  as  that  of  the  great 
bridge-builder— as  the  engineer  whose  unequalled  knowledge  of  the 
nature,  capabilities  and  requirements  in  the  use  of  wire  enabled  him 
to  revolutionize  that  important  form  of  construction. 

This  information  is  familiar  to  the  world  at  large.  For  ourselves 
the  thought  which  we  would  lay  as  a  garland  upon  the  statue  in 


53 

Cadwalader  Park,  concerns  John  A.  Roebling's  relations  with  his 
fellow-townsmen  here  in  Trenton  throughout  his  wonderfully  suc- 
cessful career.  And  we  cannot  present  this  sentiment  in  more 
appropriate  words  than  those  employed  by  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  John 
Hall,  long  pastor  of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  this  city,  who 
preached  the  funeral  sermon  on  that  eventful  Sunday  (July  25, 1869), 
when  the  remains  of  John  A.  Roebling  were  laid  at  rest  in  Mother 
Earth. 

"  Here  in  his  home,"  said  Dr.  Hall,  after  previously  alluding  to 
his  works  of  genius  and  skill,  "  in  this  host  of  sad  and  many  weep- 
ing faces,  we  find  the  memorials  of  another  and  a  higher  character ; 
one  that  was  built  up  silently  with  no  demonstration  of  what  was 
going  on  except  the  good  that  was  done  and  the  example  that  was 
set.  Here  are  the  witnesses  of  his  integrity,  liberality  and  benevo- 
lence. Here  are  those  who  were  the  almoners  of  his  bounty  to 
orphans'  and  widows'  institutions,  by  annual  appropriations  of  an 
amount  that  of  itself  secured  their  efficiency. 

"  These  bands  of  workmen — coming  not  alone  but  with  their 
wives  and  children — testify  that  they  knew  him  not  only  in  the 
workshops  or  by  the  pay  roll  but  as  the  friend  of  their  families. 

"  Here  is  the  lesson  which  men  of  capital  and  employers  of  labor 
are  summoned  by  Providence  this  day  to  learn,  to  admire  and  to 
practice.  This  scene  is  a  touching  rebuke,  in  corroboration  of 
what  all  true  social  science  teaches  to  those  who  look  upon  the 
laboring  classes  as  only  so  much  machinery  from  which  they  may 
obtain  as  much  work  with  as  little  cost  as  possible.  This  man  was 
the  friend  as  well  as  the  employer  of  his  people,  and  they  knew  they 
could  at  any  time  appeal  to  him  as  such." 

It  has  been  the  good  fortune  of  John  A.  Roebling  that  his  indus- 
try and  his  genius  have  been  transmitted  to  the  succeeding  genera- 
tions of  his  family,  that  the  manufacturing  plant  which  even  in  his 
own  day  was  very  extensive,  has  grown  to  mammoth  proportions 
and  international  reputation  under  the  management  of  his  children 
and  grandchildren,  and  that  it  still  maintains  with  its  employes  the 
policy  of  helpfulness  and  wise  consideration  which  marked  its 
pioneer  years. 

Trenton  then  does  well  to  honor  John  A.  Roebling  and  build  up 
in  a  great  resort  of  the  people  a  lasting  monument  to  the  virtues 
that  his  useful  life  taught,  while  at  the  same  time  preserving  in 


54 

enduring  bronze  the  traits  of  a  benign  countenance  in  which  are  in- 
delibly engraved  high  intelligence,  deliberate  judgment,  benevolence 
and  upright  living. 


TRENTON  TIMES,  Trenton,  N.  J. 

John  A.  Roebling,  to  whose  memory  a  monument  is  being  dedi- 
cated in  Cadwalader  Park  this  afternoon,  was  the  president  of  the 
first  Board  of  Trade  organized  in  Trenton,  and  occupied  that 
position  at  the  time  of  his  death,  on  July  22,  1869.  The  late 
Charles  Hewitt,  himself  an  engineer  of  repute,  at  a  meeting  of  the 
board  following  the  announcement  of  Mr.  Roebling's  death,  said  : 
"His  name  is  one  known  wherever  a  knowledge  of  science  has 
gone,  as  perhaps  the  most  successful  engineer  of  the  age.  He  was 
gifted  with  the  ability  to  devise  and  execute  with  equal  success,  and 
hence  deserved  and  received  the  just  praise  of  the  scientific  world." 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  there  was  appreciation  of  his  ability  by 
his  contemporaries,  and  that  the  memorial,  belated  in  erection  per- 
haps, is  richly  deserved.  "By  the  poor  Mr.  Roebling  was  justly 
beloved,"  said  Mr.  Hewitt,  who  referred  to  "the  tears  of  widows 
and  orphans,  whose  wants  have  been  supplied  by  his  benefactions," 
while  the  resolutions  of  the  organization  over  which  he  presided 
spoke  of  him  as  "always  among  the  first  to  promote  every  useful 
enterprise  and  always  ready  to  aid  liberally  in  all  the  public  and  pri- 
vate charities,  without  ostentation  or  display."  A  local  account  of 
the  funeral  referred  to  it  as  "  the  greatest  popular  demonstration  of 
respect  ever  witnessed  in  this  city." 

A  new  generation  has  come  up  since  John  A.  Roebling  died  thirty- 
nine  years  ago  ;  Trenton  has  grown  from  a  city  of  less  than  25,000 
to  one  of  100,000  inhabitants  ;  the  modest  little  wire  mill  established 
on  its  suburbs  in  1850,  has  spread  until  its  mills  and  yards  cover 
thirty-five  acres  of  ground,  with  a  village  annex  of  250  acres  and 
about  eighteen  acres  covered  with  buildings.  Seventy  buildings, 
with  a  productive  capacity  requiring  the  services  of  8,000  employes, 
have  taken  the  place  of  the  little  one-story  structure  familiar  to  the 
eyes  of  older  Trentonians. 

Surely  Trenton  should  pay  tribute  to  the  memory  of  the  immi 
grant  engineer  and  his  achievements.  Mr.  Roebling  came  to 
America  in  1831  with  a  brother,  to  engage  in  farming.  Fortunately 
for  the  world,  he  abandoned  agriculture  pursuits  after  an  experience 


55 

of  four  years,  and  resumed  the  practice  of  his  profession  as  a  civil 
engineer.  In  1842  he  induced  the  Pennsylvania  Canal  Board  to  sub- 
stitute wire  rope  for  hemp  on  the  inclined  planes  of  the  Alleghany 
Portage  Road  connecting  the  eastern  and  western  divisions  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Canal. 

The  success  of  the  experiment  led  up  to  the  construction  of  the 
suspension  aqueduct  over  the  Alleghany  River  at  Pittsburg  ;  the 
suspension  bridge  over  the  Monongahela  River ;  four  suspension 
aqueducts  on  the  Delaware  and  Hudson  Canal ;  the  great  suspension 
bridge  over  the  Niagara  River,  that  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
world  ;  a  bridge  over  the  Kentucky  River,  and  another  over  the 
Ohio  between  Cincinnati  and  Covington,  finished  in  1867  ;  and 
finally  to  the  Brooklyn  Bridge.  All  these  still  stand  as  monuments 
of  the  ability  and  foresight  of  "  the  most  successful  engineer  of  the 
age." 

Other  hands  took  up  the  work  laid  down  by  the  pioneer  suspen- 
sion bridge  builder  thirty-nine  years  ago.  They  have  no  doubt 
developed  it  far  beyond  the  dreams  of  the  father,  and  the  younger 
generation  may  in  time  still  further  extend  the  great  business  that  in 
itself  furnishes  employment  to  the  population  of  a  city  of  consider- 
able size.  Trenton  has  reason  to  honor  the  memory  of  the  man 
who  did  so  much  for  the  city. 

The  intrinsic  value  of  the  bronze  statue  is  not  great,  but  it  is 
the  first  memorial  of  the  kind  erected  by  the  municipality.  In  that 
fact  and  the  words  of  the  inscription  lie  its  worth:  "Founder  of 
Trenton's  greatest  industry  ;  an  energetic  worker,  inventor  and  man 
of  affairs  ;  devoted  to  his  adopted  country,  in  whose  progress  he 
had  unswerving  faith  ;  a  patron  of  arts  and  sciences,  and  benefactor 
to  mankind." 


STATE  GAZETTE,  Trenton,  N.  J. 

To-day  a  monument,  built  by  citizens  to  perpetuate  the  memory 
of  John  A.  Roebling,  will  be  unveiled  in  Cadwalader  Park.  The 
event  will  be  a  memorable  one,  because  of  the  fact  that  practically 
all  of  the  citizens  of  Trenton  will  participate  in  it.  The  municipal 
offices  will  be  closed  at  noon,  and  many  of  the  factories  will  suspend 
operations  long  enough  to  give  their  employes  an  opportunity  to 
visit  the  park  and  witness  the  ceremonies. 

The  monument  was  built  by  popular  subscription,  and  will  stand 


56 

as  a  testimonial  of  the  respect  that  the  citizens  of  Trenton  have  for 
the  man  who  laid  the  foundation  of  one  of  the  largest  manufacturing 
plants  of  its  kind  in  the  world,  and  which  has  contributed  in  no 
small  degree  to  the  upbuilding  of  this  city  and  bringing  it  to  the 
front  rank  of  manufacturing  towns  in  the  United  States. 

It  is  right  and  proper  that  the  men,  women  and  children  of  a 
municipality  should  honor  those  who  have  contributed  to  their  pros- 
perity and  happiness  as  John  A.  Roebling  did.  From  a  small  and 
inconsequential  establishment,  the  Roebling  plant  has  grown  to  pro- 
portions that  make  it  of  great  financial  value  to  the  city  of  Trenton. 
It  employs  thousands  of  men  and  women,  and  is  the  dependency  of 
hundreds  of  homes. 

It  required  courage  and  determination  to  lay  the  corner  stone  of 
the  great  enterprise  that  now  exists  in  the  name  of  the  John  A. 
Roebling's  Sons  Company,  and  John  A.  Roebling  possessed  them 
both  in  a  large  degree.  He  was  a  pioneer  in  the  field  of  industry 
in  New  Jersey,  and  his  industry  and  thrift  developed  not  only  the 
enterprise  in  which  he  engaged  but  the  city  in  which  he  lived, 
as  well. 


EVENING  NEWS,  Newark,  N.  J. 

The  esteem  in  which  the  memory  of  John  A.  Roebling  is  held  in 
Trenton  was  indicated  today,  when  the  people  of  that  city  dedicated 
with  impressive  ceremonies  a  statue  of  the  great  engineer,  whose 
name  has  been  a  household  word  throughout  the  country  ever  since 
his  mind  conceived  and  his  energy  constructed  the  Brooklyn  Bridge. 
Yet  it  was  not  alone  to  the  genius,  the  expert  in  wire,  the  mighty 
bridge  builder,  that  this  tribute  was  paid.  John  A.  Roebling  was 
more  to  the  people  of  Trenton  than  an  engineer  and  a  manufacturer. 
He  was  a  citizen  of  whose  achievements  his  fellow-townsmen  were 
proud  because  of  his  personal  worth,  his  charitable  nature,  his  wis- 
dom as  a  counselor,  his  friendship  for  his  neighbors,  and  his  con- 
stant endeavor  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  men  employed  by 
him.  The  statue  today  dedicated  in  Cadwalader  Park  is,  therefore, 
the  local  tribute  to  the  man. 

It  is  nearly  thirty-nine  years  since  John  A.  Roebling  died  in  the 
heighth  of  his  fame.  He  was  buried  on  July  25,  1869,  and  many 
were  the  words  of  praise  for  his  wonderful  accomplishments  spoken 
about  his  bier.  But  the  good  that  he  had  done  lived  after  him. 


57 

The  great  enterprises  that  he  started  but  left  uncompleted  were  con- 
tinued and  carried  out  with  success  by  his  family.  The  industry 
that  he  founded  in  Trenton  was  expanded,  and  the  principles  he  had 
so  firmly  laid  down  were  adhered  to  strictly.  He,  though  dead, 
has  been  speaking  all  these  years,  and  the  people  of  Trenton  have 
recognized  the  fact.  They  have  waited  long  before  honoring  Mr. 
Roebling's  memory  with  a  statue,  but  the  very  length  of  that  time 
indicates  the  permanence  of  the  esteem  in  which  he  has  been  held  in 
the  city  where  he  was  best  known. 

But  the  dedication  of  the  monument  to-day  is  more  than  a  local 
event  in  Trenton.  From  Mr.  Roebling's  native  town  in  Germany 
comes  evidence  in  the  form  of  a  cablegram  of  the  interest  there  in 
the  honor  done  a  son  of  Muelhausen.  New  Jersey  is  also  proud  of 
being  the  State  in  which  Mr.  Roebling  developed  his  talents  and 
from  which  he  gave  the  world  the  benefit  of  his  genius.  The  statue 
in  Cadwalader  Park  is  a  fitting  one,  but  it  is  small  in  comparison 
with  the  great  monuments  that  will  endure  for  generations  in  all 
parts  of  the  world  with  which  his  name  is  associated. 


THE  SUNDAY  CALL,  Newark,  N.  J. 

It  was  not  necessary  for  Trenton  to  erect  a  monument  to  John  A. 
Roebling.  The  man  whose  life  work  included  the  first  suspension 
bridge  at  Niagara  Falls  and  the  first  East  river  bridge  is  not  likely 
to  be  forgotten.  Even  in  Trenton  there  is  a  greater  monument  to 
him  than  any  artist  could  produce,  in  the  big  Roebling  works. 
However,  Trenton  did  honor  to  itself  in  erecting  the  memorial,  al- 
though it  could  not  increase  the  engineer's  fame.  Few  who  are  now 
living  remember  the  completion  of  the  suspension  bridge  over 
the  Niagara  gorge  fifty  years  ago.  It  was  one  of  the  wonders  of 
the  world  for  a  time,  and  the  discussion  as  to  whether  it  would  be 
safe  seems  amusing  now,  but  passengers  on  trains  crossing  it  had 
a  very  lively  fear  for  years  after  it  was  used. 


COURIER,  Plainfield,  N.  J. 

It  is  not  often  that  a  city  feels  proud  enough  of  one  of  her  citizens 
to  suspend  business  at  the  unveiling  of  a  monument  to  him  as  was 
done  in  Trenton  Tuesday  in  honor  of  the  late  John  A.  Roebling. 
6* 


58 

But  it  is  not  so  often  that  a  city  has  one  so  widely  interested  in  the 
great  things  of  life  as  a  great  builder,  inventor,  man  of  affairs,  patron 
of  arts  and  sciences,  who  came  from  a  foreign  land  and  did  so  much 
that  will  live  long  after  him  as  a  benefit  to  so  many  people.  The 
demonstration  to  his  greatness  came  late,  thirty-nine  years  after  his 
death,  but  it  shows  that  the  great  still  live  and  their  works  speak 
long  after  they  themselves  are  silenced  by  the  Great  Destroyer. 
The  tribute  to  this  man,  which  all  Trenton  turned  out  to  pay  him, 
is  something  of  an  example  to  the  youths  who  are  to  be  the  future 
citizens  of  the  country,  by  way  of  showing  what  hard  work  will  do 
for  a  young  man  who  came  up  from  the  lesser  walks  of  Jife.  A  til- 
ler of  the  soil,  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land,  far  from  his  home  across 
the  seas,  but  he  became  a  great  American.  It  ought  to  be  an 
inspiration  to  the  American  boy  to  be  shown  what  a  man  with  such 
handicap  could  accomplish,  when  he  had  to  go  so  far  to  do  it,  and 
meet  his  rivals  on  their  native  soil  and  so  far  outstrip  so  many  of  his 
colleagues.  If  the  demonstration  in  Trenton  shall  have  given  some 
such  inspiration  to  youth  there  and  elsewhere,  its  results  may  be  in 
the  aggregate  greater  even  than  those  of  the  man  who  was  thus 
signally  honored. 


DAILY  CITIZEN,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

A  statue  to  the  late  John  A.  Roebling  was  unveiled  in  Trenton, 
New  Jersey,  yesterday  in  the  presence  of  ten  thousand  people. 
Trenton  honored  this  man  as  her  most  distinguished  citizen,  al- 
though his  cradle  stood  in  Germany.  Roebling  founded  in  Tren- 
ton the  great  wire  and  cable  works  which  employ  over  six  thousand 
hands,  but  his  chief  claim  to  fame  rests  on  the  reputation  which 
came  to  him  as  the  designer  of  the  Brooklyn  Bridge.  Forty  years 
have  elapsed  since  Roebling  planned  this  bridge,  but  it  still  remains 
unsurpassed  in  symmetry  of  design,  in  utility  and  in  beauty. 

Emerson's  ideal  of  beauty,  which  springs  from  the  useful,  no- 
where in  the  public  monuments  of  this  city  finds  a  more  apt  expres- 
sion than  in  this  wonderful  Brooklyn  Bridge. 

Roebling  did  not  live  to  see  the  execution  of  his  design  in  stone 
and  steel,  but  his  name  is  forever  associated  with  it. 

A  great  man,  the  late  William  C.  Kingsley,  gave  Roebling  the 
opportunity  to  make  his  name  immortal.  Kingsley,  who  came  to 
Brooklyn  in  his  youth  and  prospered  here,  wished  to  do  something 


59 

for  the  city  which  had  treated  him  so  kindly,  and  his  beneficience 
took  the  form  of  the  Brooklyn  Bridge.  Kingsley,  in  common  with 
most  successful  men,  had  a  positive  genius  for  selecting  the  right 
aids.  He  interested  Stranahan  and  Murphy  in  his  project,  and 
picked  out  Roebling  for  his  engineer. 

Brooklyn,  which  owes  so  much  to  Roebling  and  Kingsley,  has 
not  seen  fit  to  honor  them  as  other  cities  would  have  done.  The 
bridge  plaza,  secured  at  an  expense  of  millions,  offered  a  fitting  loca- 
tion for  monuments  to  the  man  who  conceived  the  idea  and  the  man 
who  designed  the  bridge.  Instead  it  was  turned  into  a  railroad 
yard,  disfigured  by  the  ugly  pillars  of  the  elevated  railroad. 

Perhaps  now  that  Trenton  has  shown  the  way  Brooklyn  may  still 
repay  its  lasting  debt  to  the  memory  of  Roebling  and  Kingsley. 


DAILY  EAGLE,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Trenton  has  unveiled  a  beautiful  monument  to  John  A.  Roebling, 
whose  noblest  memorial  here  spans  the  East  river.  In  the  glory  of 
its  stone  towers  the  old  bridge  will  remain  without  a  peer  so  long  as 
economy  dictates  the  construction  of  skeleton  steel  columns  which 
are  as  strong  and  as  serviceable  as  they  are  devoid  of  dignity  and 
grace. 


ELECTRICAL  WORLD,  New  York. 

The  past  50  years  have  unquestionably  been  an  "age  of  wire." 
Electricity  has  in  some  respects  supplanted  cable  haulage,  but  while 
the  present  civilization  lasts  it  looks  as  though  the  general  uses  of 
wire  rope  would  increase  and  extend.  Meantime  electricity 
itself  is  causing  a  greater  and  greater  demand  for  wire  and  cable  and 
is  broadly  based  upon  their  use.  In  this  field  of  wire  and  cable 
manufacture,  one  or  two  great  personalities  have  dominated,  and  at 
the  very  head  stood  John  A.  Roebling,  altogether  a  genius  and  a 
great  engineer.  Few  men  have  left  a  deeper  imprint  on  their  day 
and  on  industry  generally  than  did  he ;  and  it  is  altogether  fit  and 
proper  that  in  Trenton,  where  he  called  such  vast  manufacturing 
establishments  into  existence,  employing  thousands  of  people,  there 
should  have  been  set  up  last  week  a  noble  and  dignified  statue  to  his 
memory.  The  life  work  of  Roebling  was  altogether  beneficial  to 
this  country  and  to  humanity,  and  the  man  himself  was  a  fine  spirit. 
The  world  would  be  better  for  more  leaders  like  him. 


60 

ENGINEERING  RECORD,  New  York. 

John  A.  Roebling  occupied  such  a  distinguished  position  as  an 
engineer,  manufacturer  and  public  spirited  citizen  that  a  statue  of 
him  has  been  erected  in  Cadwalader  Park,  in  Trenton.  With  the 
exception  of  the  statue  of  General  Greene  at  Gettysburg,  the  bust 
of  Alexander  Holley  in  New  York,  the  statue  unveiled  at  the  New 
Jersey  capital  on  Tuesday  of  this  week,  Ericson's  statue  in  New 
York,  and  the  statue  of  General  Meade  at  Gettysburg,  it  will  be 
hard  to  find  any  such  memorials  of  American  engineers  in  con- 
spicuous places.  A  few  American  engineers  have  had  small  cities 
named  after  them,  but  as  a  rule  their  fame  must  rest  on  the  connec- 
tion of  their  names  with  great  works.  Consequently  the  signal 
honor  paid  to  Roebling's  memory  by  the  City  of  Trenton  and  men 
eminent  in  the  public  affairs  of  New  Jersey  is  most  gratifying. 


RECORD,  Troy,  N.  Y. 

The  erection  of  a  statue  by  the  citizens  of  Trenton,  New  Jersey, 
to  John  A.  Roebling,  the  man  who  built  the  Brooklyn  bridge,  is 
notable  because  it  awards  a  lasting  memorial  to  one  of  a  class  of 
men  who  are  rarely  remembered  in  this  way.  The  builder  and  the 
mechanical  genius  have  never  appealed  to  the  public.  It  is  the  poet 
and  the  statesmen  who  gain  the  marble  tributes.  Perhaps  it  is  just 
as  well.  The  monuments  of  these  men  are  in  their  works.  Chris- 
topher Wren,  the  architect  and  builder,  is  buried  in  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral,  the  masterpiece  of  all  the  churches  he  erected.  Over  the 
inner  north  doorway  is  a  tablet  containing  this  epitaph  :  "  Si  monu- 
mentum  requiris,  circumspice : "  "If  you  seek  for  a  monument, 
look  about  you." 


TRIBUNE,  Scranton,  Pa. 

The  unveiling  of  a  statue  to  the  memory  of  John  A.  Roebling, 
the  builder  of  the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  at  Trenton  the  other  day  was  a 
deserved  tribute  to  great  genius.  John  A.  Roebling  was  not  a  war- 
rior or  a  statesman.  Before  the  completion  of  the  great  span  that 
first  linked  Manhattan  to  Long  Island,  he  was  practically  unknown. 
Yet  this  modest  wire  manufacturer  paved  the  way  for  undertakings 
undreamt  of  when  the  work  of  laying  foundations  for  the  piers  of 
the  big  bridge  began. 


61 

At  the  birth  of  Roebling's  scheme  to  span  the  East  river,  the  city 
of  Brooklyn  seemed  like  a  distant  suburb  to  those  who  were  obliged 
to  travel  by  ferry  boats  and  slow  horse  cars.  The  opening  of  the 
Brooklyn  Bridge,  even  before  the  advent  of  trolley  and  elevated 
cars,  made  the  trip  to  Brooklyn  only  a  matter  of  a  few  minutes,  and 
the  structure  has  borne  millions  of  travelers  since. 

The  sinking  of  the  tubes  under  the  East  river  has  made  it  possible 
for  the  business  man  to  get  to  and  from  his  work  more  quickly 
than  by  the  bridge.  But  this  great  span  was  the  first  step  in  the 
line  of  progress  that  has  by  rapid  transit  brought  many  neighboring 
towns  within  the  city  of  Greater  New  York.  The  Brooklyn  Bridge 
stands  to-day  a  magnificent  monument  to  the  genius  and  energy  of 
one  of  America's  foremost  sons  of  progress. 


TELEGRAM,  Bridgeport,  Conn. 

The  erection  of  a  statue  to  the  memory  of  John  A.  Roebling,  who 
built  the  Brooklyn  Bridge  and  laid  the  foundation  of  the  immense 
wire  cable  enterprises  at  Trenton  is  regarded  with  satisfaction  by 
those  who  desire  to  see  the  forces  which  are  revolutionizing  the  mod- 
ern world  receive  their  due  meed  of  acknowledgment.  It  is  a  pity 
that  the  figure  of  the  great  bridge  builder  could  not  have  commanded 
some  central  position  upon  his  supreme  achievement  instead  of  being 
placed  in  the  New  Jersey  city.  It  is,  however,  none  the  less  a  thing 
for  which  to  be  grateful  and  a  sign  that  the  world  is  growing  wiser. 

The  decline  of  art  and  literature  is  a  disputed  commonplace  of 
the  schools  ;  but  the  intellectual  rise  of  the  engineer  and  the  crafts- 
man has  taken  place  almost  unnoted.  The  common  everyday  needs 
of  the  world  are  now  met  upon  such  a  stupendous  scale  that  they 
who  grapple  with  them  must  possess  all  the  fire,  insight  and  strength 
of  imagination  which  used  to  be  considered  the  especial  dower  of 
poets  and  painters.  They  must  see  the  thing  they  wish  to  do  in 
clear  vision  long  before  even  the  plans  for  it  take  actual  shape,  they 
must  give  their  lives  to  their  work  and  be  willing  to  lose  them  in  its 
service.  There  must  be  an  element  of  selfishness  in  their  great  am- 
bition ;  some  sense  of  the  advancement  their  work  or  their  invention 
will  confer  upon  the  race  must  sustain  and  uplift  them  in  their  fight 
with  fortune.  Then  when  the  ship  or  the  bridge  is  planned  or  the 
machine  which  is  almost  human  in  its  fine  workings  is  ready  to  be 
built  or  operated  they  are  helpless  until  they  find  craftsmen  of  the 


62 

same  high  quality  as  themselves  to  carry  out  their  ideas.  It  is  the 
glory  of  the  age  that  such  are  rarely  if  ever  wanting.  The  skilled 
mechanic  of  the  present  loves  and  understands  his  work  in  the  spirit 
which  dominated  the  great  wonder  workers  of  the  past.  He  is  their 
lineal  successor,  and  like  them,  he  toils  none  the  less  faithfully  be- 
cause the  work  he  has  wrought  bears  no  record  of  his  name. 

The  more  than  six  thousand  workmen  who  formed  a  guard  of 
honor  at  the  unveiling  of  the  Roebling  statue  are  the  necessary  com- 
plement of  such  men  as  the  famous  engineer  who  so  gallantly  con- 
quered what  was  then  believed  to  be  impossible.  They  are  slowly 
coming  to  their  kingdom  ;  but  it  is  surely  awaiting  them. 


MANUFACTURER'S  RECORD,  Baltimore,  Md. 

The  recent  unveiling  in  Trenton,  N.  J.,  of  a  bronze  statue, 
which  was  erected  by  popular  subscription  to  the  memory  of  John 
A.  Roebling,  is  of  peculiar  and  noteworthy  significance,  as  it  is  not 
only  indicative  of  the  high  honor  and  esteem  in  which  the  memory 
of  his  worth  as  a  man  and  citizen  is  held,  but  also  is  a  fitting  tribute 
to  the  creative  genius  of  the  man  who  founded  one  of  the  most 
important  industrial  establishments  of  the  city  and  of  the  country, 
and  who  by  his  wonderful  engineering  abilities  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  whole  world.  This  event,  however,  has  a  still  greater 
significance,  in  that  it  centers  attention  on  the  freedom  of  an  indus- 
trial system  under  which  the  growth  of  a  legitimate  enterprise  was 
made  possible,  and  it  is  a  strong  object-lesson  to  those  who  would 
strike  at  the  heart  of  such  a  system  and  throw  so  many  restrictions 
around  it  that  in  the  future  it  would  become  impossible  for  any  in- 
dustrial establishment  to  enjoy  a  healthy  and  proper  growth  and 
keep  pace  with  the  development  of  the  country. 

The  history  of  the  company's  growth  and  broad  policies  finds  its 
counterpart  in  the  history  of  nearly  every  one  of  the  country's  large 
industrial  establishments,  which  have  been  influential  in  making 
this  nation  supreme  in  such  activities.  But  with  all  this  in  mind 
there  are  those,  and  they  are  in  great  numbers  in  this  country,  who 
cannot  or  will  not  see  the  picture  of  the  present  growth  of  our  lead- 
ing industries  and  the  broad  effect  they  have  had  upon  national  pros- 
perity, but  look  only  on  the  smaller  one  showing  the  original  and 
cramped  quarters  of  a  new-born  enterprise,  or,  in  other  words,  they 
refuse  to  acknowledge  that  the  great  growth  of  these  large  businesses 


63 

have  had  a  wholesome  influence  upon  the  country's  affairs.  There 
are  those  who  will  not  give  credit  to  the  industries  which  are  pro- 
viding employment  at  good  wages,  steadily  increasing  in  recent 
years,  to  millions  of  the  people,  for  the  opportunities  they  are  hold- 
ing out  to  young  men  to  develop  their  talents.  This  narrow- 
minded  view  becomes  dangerous  to  the  country  when  it  is  embodied 
in  practical  agitation.  For  that  menaces  the  industrial  freedom 
which  is  the  foundation  of  the  great  development  of  this  country  in 
all  lines  of  endeavor.  It  was  this  broad  freedom  that  attracted  John 
A.  Roebling  to  this  country. 


771 

/HO 


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THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


Series  9482 


A     000  588  703 9" 


